The Rose, The Lion, and The Wolf or the Second Dance
by Barbarossa
Summary: When Robert Baratheon and Rhaegar Targaryen died at the Trident, Robert's Rebellion came to a very different end. An infant Aegon VI was placed on the throne and the Lords Paramount sought to put an end to the abuse of power by the Targaryens, but the beginnings of a Westrosi parliament may only fan the flames of future conflict. A war is coming... a Dance of Dragons
1. Prelude: The Disgraced Kingsguard

**Prelude: The Disgraced Kingsguard**

283 AC

It wasn't right.

No, it wasn't right at all that the lords of Westeros spat on his name for killing the Mad King. He had done it to save thousands, tens of thousands even, not that they knew that. Yet, their attitude towards his oathbreaking was something he understood. He was living with the consequences of his actions, something that he had control over. He hated it, but he understood. Now they spat at his name because of his father. Tywin "The Kingmaker" Lannister had removed him from the kingsguard and ordered him back to Casterly Rock, to serve both as castilian and as Warden of the West.

 _I would have taken the Black._

 _I should have taken the Black._

Yet, instead of being punished, he was being rewarded. He had tried to tell his father. He had tried to make him understand what the other families would say, but his lordly father had simply reiterated what he had long believed.

"A lion cares nothing for the opinions of sheep."

Yet he wasn't the lion that was having his name uttered as if it were an insult. He wasn't the one going back to Casterly Rock. He would remain in King's Landing ruling in the name of the infant king, Aegon VI.

No one would spit upon the name Tywin Lannister, not when he was Warden of the West and certainly not now that he was Hand of the King and head of a regency council for a boy that was barely a year past his name day.

As Jaime thought about the challenges to come, his thoughts couldn't help but drift to Cersei. He'd joined the Kingsguard to be with her, but Rhaegar and she had not been wed and so it was that they were separated. Now she would be wed to the boy Viserys and shipped off to Dragonstone while he was on the other side of the continent in Casterly Rock.

She'll be wed to a dragon princeling, just as father had originally intended.

If his father continued to get his way, then Jaime would find himself betrothed to either Rhaenys or Daenerys. They were but swaddling babes, with Daenerys just weeks old, but already his lordly father was attempting to design their fate. Whether the Tyrells and the Martells allowed that to happen was something else entirely.

Then there came a knock at the door that roused Ser Jaime from his thoughts. Cautiously, his hand clenching the hilt of his sword in preparation for an attack that he didn't really think was coming, he opened the door. Standing before him, dressed in the clothes of a serving girl was his sister.

"Hurry, let me in. We can't have someone catch us," she urged as she pushed her way past Jaime into his dimly lit room.

"W-why? What are you doing here?"

"We haven't much time. Gather what you can. How many dragons do you have? We'll need more than a handful to live well in Pentos. I gathered what I could, mostly it's just jewelry and other finery."

Cersei was frantic, she was looking around the room grabbing anything that looked like it might be of some value and piling it together on Jaime's bed. "Are you too terribly attached to your armor? We could probably sell it when we get to Pentos for a nice sum."

Jaime shook his head, still unsure of what was going on.

"Why are we going to Pentos? Has something happened to father?"

There was no way the Dragon Loyalists had staged a coup. _Was there?_

"No, but something is going to happen to us if you don't hurry!" she commanded.

"I don't understand, Cersei. You aren't making any sense. You need to explain why you are doing this."

She looked at him as if she couldn't comprehend why he didn't understand her.

"Father means to marry me off to that child and send me to Dragonstone while you marry one of the little girls and are sent off to Casterly Rock. We can't allow that. We've only just been reunited. We have to run while we still can. While the city is still chaotic."

With that, Jaime understood. He wanted to embrace her, love her passionately, and take everything that they had and flee, but he couldn't.

"Cersei go back to your room. Go to sleep, forget this ever happened, please. We have duties."

It hurt him to say it, but the shifting expression on Cersei's face told him it hurt her more or rather it angered her more.

"You coward," she spat with disgust.

"Cersei, that's not fair," he started, only to be cut off by his sister, who now glared at him with a mixture of revulsion and loathing.

"Not fair! What's not fair is that I'm being forced to marry a sniveling little child, who will almost certainly never rule once his nephew is old enough to start producing heirs! What's not fair is that I am to spend the rest of my days on a rock in the middle of the sea! What's not fair is that I'm going to have to raise a child and then marry him! You get off easy in this! You get to go back home, to the Rock! You get to spend your time with that deformed little monster you call a brother!"

"Leave Tyrion out of this," he demanded, finally attempting to stop her tirade. She simply sneered at him and went on.

"Father thinks that you will be a great ruler, but he's blinded by his own aspiration. You're a joke. A silly little boy of seven and ten who is busy feeling sorry for himself because he had to kill an aresehole who would have ordered him dead as quickly as he swatted a fly. You'll be just like grandfather. Jaime and Tytos Lannister, the two incompetents that nearly destroyed House Lannister. That's how you'll be remembered. It'll be my son and I who will have to pick up the pieces after you bring ruin upon the Westerlands!"

"Cersei, please stop?" It came across as less like he was commanding her and more like he was pleading. The things she was saying, they hurt. They hurt far more than the should, and yet they hurt all the same. His fists were clenched at this point and a part of him feared what he might so if she went further.

His sister glared at him and pointed accusatory.

"I thought we could have loved one another. I thought we could have built a family in Pentos, away from this place and these horrible people. I hadn't realized that you were more a child than my betrothed."

With that, she stormed out of his room, leaving him alone and feeling as if he'd been knocked on his ass.

 **290 AC**

Two years had passed since Balon's rebellion had been crushed and seven since the High Lords' Rebellion had come to an end. Jaime thought the name to be a rather dreadful one that lacked flair and wasn't entirely faithful to what had ignited the conflict. A better name might have been the War for Lyanna Stark or the Deposition of the Mad King. No one had asked him what they should call the war. Still, whatever it was called it was over. On this day he would play his part in solidifying the peace.

"Are you excited to receive your bride, brother?" Asked his younger brother as they waited alongside numerous Lannister bannermen for Princess Arianne Martell and her entourage to exit the ship they had arrived at Lannisport in.

With a smile, Jaime replied earnestly, "A bit more nervous than excited."

This was Jaime doing his duty to make sure the peace was not just a fleeting thing. Though his father had tried to maneuver it so that he would be betrothed to either Rhaenys or Daenerys, the Reachmen and the Dornish made it known that this wouldn't be tolerated. They would fight to prevent the Lannister's from dominating the royal family. With the largely uncharismatic Lord Stannis busy in the Stormlands, the Iron Islands still reeling from their defeat, the Vale, and the Riverlands neutral, the only possible ally the Westerlands had against the combined forces of the Reach and Dorne was the North and Lord Eddard Stark was unlikely to lend them help. After the revelation that Rhaegar had married Lyanna Stark and had a second son by her, Lord Eddard could have pressed his nephew's rights to Dragonstone as heir to the babe Aegon VI, yet he had done none of that. Instead, he took his sister's body, little Rhaegar, and his brother's bastard daughter out of the southern lands and never looked back.

Maybe he feared what Lord Tywin would do to the boy if Eddard had pushed for the boy's legal rights. The Dornish and the Reachmen would have allied with the North if it meant giving the Westerlands a black eye, and if the North got involved it would likely have dragged in the Riverlands and possibly the Vale. Against such a force, even Jaime doubted his father could win such a fight. But Lord Eddard had wanted none of that. He had a son of his own waiting for him and he longed for his home. So it came to pass that little Rhaegar made Winterfell his home while Rhaenys had been promised to the eldest son of Mace Tyrell, and Daenerys had been sent to Dorne.

Jaime's role in making the peace last was pulling Dorne away from the Reach by marrying Princess Arianne Martell. His father had stressed the importance of the marriage alliance in his letters. Being wed to this Dornish princess could save lives, and if she looked anything like her aunt then there were certainly worse things a man could do to save lives.

At last, the Dornish began to emerge from their great dhow. The throngs of smallfolk that had gathered to see the new lady of Casterly Rock ooed and awed at the procession of foreigners. The princess herself was not revealed to Jaime with the rest of her entourage. While most walked, several Sandy and Salty Dornishmen held a palanquin which must have contained the princess. The Dornish made their way to the Westerlanders and halted before them, the thick arms of the men keeping the palanquin aloft looked strained. Then, the men who held the palanquin slowly allowed it to descend to the ground. Jaime had hoped that the Dornish princess would emerge from her hiding, but after a Dornish cryer proclaimed the arrival of the princess and few moments had been allowed to pass he felt compelled to step forward.

"It is a great honor to welcome you to the Westerlands, Princess Arianne."

He had to stop himself from bowing. He was the de facto Lord of Casterly Rock he bowed to no one save King Aegon VI.

After another moment, a Dornish maiden of maybe five and ten, certainly no older, stepped forward from the Dornish procession and spoke.

"Yes, I think you will do. You certainly look like you will do."

"I'm sorry?" Jaime replied with a mix of confusion and annoyance.

"I am Princess Arianne Martell, and I believe that you will make a good husband."

Jaime pointed to the palanquin which prompted the princess to pull open the curtain and reveal a great deal of jewelry and coin.

"The dowry my father promised."

"But why?"

"I wanted to see the man who would be my husband before he saw me. So that I might know if you were right," she responded as if her deception was nothing

"And is he?" an inquisitive Tyrion asked from behind him.

"He certainly looks like he may be." she smiled.

 _This will certainly be an interesting relationship._


	2. Prelude: The Prince of Dragonstone

**The Prince of Dragonstone**

 **290 AC**

"It's not fair!" The little dragon cried. Hot angry tears rolled down his face as his wife comforted him during another one of his temper tantrums. "It's just not fair."

"Shh shh shh," his lady wife cooed to him. She stroked his shoulder length silver hair out of his face and looked into his angry tear filled eyes. "Kings don't cry."

The way she said it was half a command and half an insult, but this prince of five and ten knew that she only said hurtful things when he needed to hear them. So Viserys did his best to stifle his tears before he eventually choked out, "but I will never be king."

There was very little sign of anger or malice on his wife's face when she struck him. The sting of the slap was intense and the pain lingered beyond the initial strike. This wasn't the first time she'd struck him. She swatted him a lot when he was younger, but this was the first time she'd done it in several years. Before he could cry or yell out or strike her back, she leaned in closely to his face and huskily whispered, "You will be king."

She closed the distance between their faces and kissed his nose, then his cheek, and then his lips. She bit into his lower lip slightly and pulled it back a bit, giving the prince a mixture of pleasure and pain before she kissed him again.

"I'm sorry," he managed to get out between kisses.

"A dragon doesn't apologize," she replied before leaning in for another kiss.

This was how it always went. A cycle of tears, anger, and pleasure. Viserys had been just ten when his wife had first teased him with a kiss after she'd slapped him to to make him stop crying. The hurtful things she said and the pain was worth it if it meant that she would hold him, caress his hair, and make him feel cared for afterwards. No one else cared for him like she did. His mother was dead, Dany rarely wrote him, he'd seen Aegon once since the end of the war, and he'd never met Rhaegar. He was a captive on Dragonstone. A prisoner in a gilded cage. But he had his Cersei. She loved him and she took care of him when everyone had deserted him. She had been denied the Westerlands by her father. Instead of sending her treacherous brother who had killed his father to the Wall or executing him, Lord Tywin had granted Jaime Lannister the Westerlands. If Viserys couldn't be king he could have at least been Lord Paramount of the Westerlands and Warden of the West, but Tywin had stolen that right from his wife and left the two of them to languish on Dragonstone.

Cersei cupped Viserys' face in her hands and after one more kiss she whispered, "When the time comes, my love, we will take what is owed to us with fire and blood."

...

 **291 AC**

Cersei's scream of pain frightened Viserys more than anything had managed to frighten him since the end of the war. He remembered his mother's cries during the birth of his sister. He remembered her pain and how it had killed her and it made him so very afraid.

"Everything is going as it should, my love. You will be fine," he said in an attempt to reassure both his wife and himself. The boy of just six and ten held a frantic look on his face when he turned to the midwife. He couldn't lose Cersei, he couldn't lose her. "Everything is fine, right?" He pleaded.

"Yes, my lord," the elderly midwife replied. "Everything is going as well as it should given the circumstances."

Turning back to his wife, with the bravest face he could muster he spoke again, "See, everything's fine. We will get through this, I promise."

With that, Cersei grabbed his hand and clenched it with such force that Viserys feared she might break something. "Shut up and get them out of me!" she commanded through clenched teeth. Her eyes were wide with pain and rage. It was as if she were a storm made flesh.

The births was long and laborious, but after hours that seemed to be stretched into days, the couple's first daughter emerged into the world; and after her came her twin sister. Looking at them, Viserys realized that they were the most beautiful things in the entire world. There was a bit of lion and a bit of dragon in the both of them as the both had an eye of emerald like their mother and an eye of violet like their father.

Cersei held the eldest girl close to her while Viserys held the younger twin. The new father was entranced by the little bundle in his arms. He'd do anything for her. He understood that simple fact the instant he held her in his arms. He'd burn the entire world down if it meant she could rule over the ashes.

"My sweet, Joanna," Cersei cooed to the little bundle that she so carefully held. She looked up from her newly named eldest daughter to Viserys and the bundle he held, "and my little Rhaella."

...

 **294 AC**

The pale peach sky dimly lit Viserys, his family, and their household attendants, as they waited and watched Lord Tywin and his host make their way to the internal gates of the great Targaryen castle of Dragonstone. Little Joanna held onto Viserys' right hand trying to swing it about while Rhaella clung to his left leg. At his side, Cersei held baby Jaehaerys in a bundle of linen. The boy was barely a month old, his birth had been the pretense for Lord Tywin's visit to his prisoners on the island.

Viserys imagined that his father by marriage had expected him to meet the Hand of the King at the raggamuffin port village that was situated beneath the Dragonmont. The Targaryen prince rarely went to the village and when he did he made sure to maintain a regal air to himself. Cersei always emphasized the importance of maintaining the appearance of a king. He wasn't about to debase himself before his subjects to greet the man who made him a captive on the island and he certainly wasn't going to drag his queen to the docks, not after everything she'd been through.

That she was standing at all was a testament to her strength of will. Her pregnancy with Jaehaerys had lingered for too long. There were some fears the the little prince had died inside her and would kill her, but the liveliness of little Jaehaerys quickly put that fear to rest. Yet, the overly long pregnancy had caused troubles of its own. The birth had been terrible and long, and there had been so much blood and so many screams. When it seemed that the little prince would not leave his mother there was talk of cutting the babe out, a procedure that almost certainly would have killed Cersei.

He'd have none of that talk. They would rip the child out with tongs before he allowed them to kill his wife. Viserys loved his little boy, Jaehaerys, but at that moment, he would have traded the Seven Kingdoms to the Others if it meant saving his wife. Though the birth had been a long and laborious process, both mother and son had made it through the ghastly ordeal and Cersei had clung to little Jaehaerys until she eventually passed out from exhaustion. She had been bedridden for weeks after the birth and surely should have been seated waiting for her father. Despite that, she had elected to stand, much to Viserys consternation.

Following a small procession of Crownlander troops, Lord Tywin arrived before his family at last. The older man dismounted from his horse and approached Viserys and his brood.

Cersei was the first to speak,"Good evening, father. I hope your voyage went well."

"It went well enough, though I will always prefer to have good solid ground beneath my feet," he paused for a moment and looked to the two small girls on either side of Viserys."You two must be Joanna and Rhaella? I've heard a great deal about you in the letters you mother and father write. It is a wonder to finally make your acquaintance," he smiled at the two little girls. While Joanna smiled back, still swinging her father's hand back and forth, Rhaella tucked her face further behind her father's pant leg.

After a soft pat on Rhaella's back, Viserys spoke, "Manners girls. This is your grandfather, Lord Tywin. Now introduce yourselves."

Joanna was quick to speak, though as one of her front teeth had failed to ever come in so she spoke with a lisp, "Hello, granfasser, Lors Thywin."

"Grandfather will be enough, dear," Lord Tywin responded.

"So that must mean, that you are Rhaella?"

Rhaella simply nodded and attempted to hide herself again.

Her grandfather looked up to Cersei and Viserys, "Unfortunate. I'll have a speech coach shipped over immediately so that we can get her speaking."

"She speaks just fine, father," Cersei said, before Viserys could say something more harsh. "She's nervous. It's not often that we receive visitors in the courtyard."

"Still, it would do her well to be more outgoing. We can discuss the matter later though."

A deep seething rage filled Viserys, he was upset at Rhaella, but the audacity of Tywin had him fuming.

"And this is little Jaehaerys, is he not?" He pointed to the bundle in Cersei's arms.

"He is."

Tywin leaned uncomfortably close to Jaehaerys, "He's beautiful. He'll make a fine husband for Ellia."

"Barely born and you're already planning to marry him off," Viserys said bitingly.

"Assuming Jaime produces a male heir soon, marrying his daughter Ellia to Jaehaerys is safe calculation to keep the Dornish from making moves that might foster conflict in our family."

He could have simply said yes. The answer was yes. Instead he had to talk down to him in front of his family. _Will Cersei berate me for allowing myself to be stepped on by her father?_ He wondered.

"We have much to discuss and you will likely wish to put the children away for bed."

Now he was letting himself into Viserys' home. He wasn't even waiting for him to end the pleasantries and introductions on his own terms. He was just forcing his way in.

After he put the girls to bed he took his wife to their chambers with Jaehaerys.

"Say, nothing. Let him think we bare him no resentment or ill will, but don't be taken in by any of his promises."

He kissed her atop her brow, nodded in agreement, and departed to speak with Lord Tywin.

In Viserys' study, Tywin had already begun to make himself feel at home. He had pulled several ancient volumes from the bookshelf and placed them on the great table that had been carved into a detailed map of the seven kingdoms.

"You wished to speak about something, father?" Viserys tried to remain cordial.

"Yes, I've been making arrangements for you and the next Lord of Dragonstone."

 _He was already planning on kicking my family off of the island to make way for Aegon's_ son. Viserys thought.

"I suspected that this day would come, but I assumed that you would wait to discuss out eviction until Aegon had an heir of at least was old enough to rule."

Tywin shook his head, "I was referring to my grandson."

"But-" Viserys started only to be cut off by Tywin.

"I acquired the backing of enough lords to push Dragonstone to be made the permanent home of your cadet branch of House Targaryen." Tywin calmly responded.

"Without Crownland taxes, the maintenance of Dragonstone will be all but impossible. The castle will slip into a state of disrepair."

"I thought of that as well and that is why I have these." Tywin pulled several pieces of parchment out of a satchel and handed two to Viserys.

"This is a charter for a city?" Viserys questioned.

"Yes, with Spicetown having never been rebuilt after the Dance, trade from Essos has largely gone to Duskendale and King's Landing. Dragonstone is at a strategic choke point in the bay to take advantage of trade. The creation of a city that acts as a gateway to the rest of Westeros will greatly increase the taxes you receive." While he said this he pointed to the little island of Dragonstone on the great map of Westeros.

"What's to stop them from bypassing the city?"

"That's what the second document is for. Any and all shipping coming into King's Landing must first be stamped by the harbormaster of Dragonstone, which will force traders to dock here, which will give merchants on Dragonstone first pick of the product so that they may sell it at marked up rates in the capital."

"But if this only means that trade to King's Landing must go through Dragonstone, what's to stop traders from going to Duskendale?"

"There is that possibility, but it will be your decision on whether you wish to do something about that if you so chose."

"Duskendale is in the Crownlands. It's not under Dragonstone."

"It is now, or at the very least it soon will be."

"I don't understand." and Viserys really didn't. His father by marriage seemed to be revealing information piecemeal with each bit more impressive than the last as if to bait him in like an animal.

"It has been decided that the Crownlands are simply too large. They present any monarch with too great of a power base to threaten the lords of Westeros. So it has been decided by the Small Council that a new realm will carved out of them. The lands under the Cressys, Chytterings, Mallerys, and Blounts will remain as part of the shrunken Crownlands, as will King's Landing of course, but the remainder of the Crownlands will be made into the Baylands administered by their lord paramount, the Lord of Dragonstone. The move will require the approval of all of the other high lords, but I am certain the Dornish will support the move given your connection to them through your sister, and Lord Stannis will see the wisdom in weakening the ability the king to ignore the laws of gods and men. Riverrun will vote with the Starks, and Lord Eddard lost so much to your father that it will likely drive him to approve of this move. The last hold out will likely, be Mace Tyrell, but I believe that by the end of the year, you and Cersei will be Lord and Lady Paramount of the Baylands."

Tywin grinned ever so slightly and Viserys couldn't help but smile. He was being given what he needed to take more, to take his birthright.

...


	3. Prelude: The Dragon in the Winter

**The Dragon in the Winter**

 **294 AC**

It was snowing. It tended to do that a lot in Winterfell. Ser Arthur had told the little prince it rarely snowed in Dorne or King's Landing, and never outside of the winter. The little dragon prince couldn't imagine living in a place like that. There were so many things Rhaegar wished he could run away from, but the snow wasn't one of them.

Gazing out at the open lands surrounding Winterfell, lightly dusted by summer snow, the little prince thought about running away. His uncle and Ser Arthur would come looking for him as soon as they realized what he had done, they were likely already curious as to why he was not with the rest of the lords and ladies celebrating Robb's tenth name day. Still, the both of them would know why he wasn't with the rest of the attendants despite his love for his cousin Robb. It had been at the Sansa's most recent name day celebration that the boy of just nine had been confronted with why so many seemed so hostile to him.

He'd cried after he'd heard what they'd said about his father and about the things they blamed on him. Ser Arthur had nearly come to blows with a drunken Lord Glover after the Lord of Deepwood Motte had started talking about something called _first night_ and calling Rhaegar's father a raper. After the knight had found Rhaegar hiding, he told him they were all lies.

"You're mother and father loved each other a great deal. They wanted to be together, they didn't know what that would mean for everyone though. But it wasn't their fault and it certainly wasn't yours." Ser Arthur had tried to reassure him.

It hadn't though. Maybe if his father had been like one of the villainous Kings-Beyond-the-Wall or one of the Kings of the Dreadfort in Old Nan's stories he could have worked to be like his mother, but if they were both so wild and careless that they would do something that would cause so many people to suffer then what kind of people were they?

He wished that he wasn't a dragon. He wished that Lord Eddard and Lady Catelyn had been his parents and that Robb was as much his brother by blood as he was by spirit. Then they wouldn't whisper about how his father was a monster or how his mother was too wild. He'd just be Eddard Stark's second son and that was more than enough for him.

It was the same and yet different for his cousin Lyanna Snow. Maybe others didn't say things, but he knew that Lady Catelyn looked with disapproval on his uncle Brandon's daughter. He didn't understand it and no one had ever explained it to him because he was too young.

Was it because of her name?

Rhaegar thought it a very unkind thing to judge a person because they had the same name as someone you didn't like. Yet, it didn't really matter what Rhaegar thought because the Lady Catelyn was cold to his cousin all the same. There were others who were cold to her as well, but differently than how they were cold to him. When they had celebrations or feasts, Rhaegar was always allowed to sit with the lords and ladies while Lyanna sat away from them. It made him sad and mad that she was left out, which he thought a little strange because he never got mad when he was left out. Mostly he just got sad, but seeing the pale girl with violet eyes and dark hair all alone made him mad. She'd done nothing wrong.

If he ran away and somehow made it to a place Lord Eddard and Ser Arthur couldn't find him, he wondered what would happen to Lyanna. Would Robb and Sansa play with her if he wasn't there to ask?

"It isn't right to leave her out of things," he grumbled into the chilled evening air.

And then, as if deliberately trying to frighten Rhaegar, a woman's voice called out of the darkness of a covered rampart,"What's not right?"

The little dragon jumped, frightened by the sudden intrusion upon his self imposed seclusion by a strange woman.

Emerging from the shadows into the pale light of the gibbous moon was Lady Barbrey Dustin. Rhaegar recognized the woman. She was a thin looking woman, but her belly was distended by another child. She looked slyly at the boy, a thin smile worn on her face that was not at all disarming.

"Do you not enjoy celebrations, little prince?"

Rhaegar chose to be truthful and nodded yes.

"I'm much the same way, much to little Bethany and my lord husband's chagrin. There was a time when I found them exciting, but that was because of one rather special person."

She turned away from Rhaegar and looked out from the ramparts at the accumulating snow before she continued, "Would you like to hear a story, little prince?"

Again, all Rhaegar found himself able to do was nod his head in affirmation.

"Before I was Lady Dustin, I was Barbrey Ryswell, the second daughter of a house pledged to the Dustins," Rhaegar knew that, he'd been learning all the houses in the North since he was just five. "I was never going to marry a dashing knight, or a king, or even a prince like yourself. I would be married off to a Dustin or some other Northern house, and maybe if I was especially lucky I would marry the second son of the the Lord Paramount."

Rhaegar realized that she meant his uncle, Lord Eddard.

"But the Old Gods seemed to smile upon me, because at a celebration much this, I met the most wonderful man I had ever known. He was tall and handsome with grey eyes like yours, and he was wild. We fell in love that night. The kind of love that were we to have lived in the Age of Heroes would have become the stuff of legend."

Lady Dustin grew quiet and gazed mournfully out into the snowy night.

"What happened?" Rhaegar finally asked.

"A little grey rat whispered into the ear of my love's father. He told him of power and opportunity that could only come from the southern lands. So my love was taken away from me and promised to a lady in the Riverlands. As compensation I was promised my love's younger brother." She turned back to Rhaegar and looked at him in a way that the little boy couldn't properly describe, but there was a pain in the cold eyes that glared down at him.

"His brother was tall and handsome, with the same lovely grey eyes, but he was quiet and shy. He wasn't wild and passionate like my love, but I could have learned to love him and we could have had a family. Only something terrible happened."

"What?" Rhaegar asked, wanting to know the answer; all while hoping for a happy ending he knew wasn't going to come.

"You," she responded coldly.

"Rhaegar stole Lyanna, or maybe she ran away with him like Ser Arthur Dayne claims, but it hardly matters now. What mattered was that my love, my Brandon, would not let such a slight stand. He rode like a man possessed and didn't stop riding until he was at the Red Keep. He demanded your father face him in combat, and so your grandfather, the Mad King, imprisoned him and called forth Lord Rickard Stark. When Rickard arrived in the capital he to was arrested. Then the Mad King slowly burnt Rickard alive while Brandon was forced to watch." Rhaegar stared up in horror as Lady Dustin continued with her story. "But it wasn't enough to make my poor Brandon watch as his father was roasted alive. No, the Mad King liked to play games. So a sword had been placed just outside of Brandon's reach while a rope had been tied around his neck. Trying to grab that sword to free himself and his father was exactly what the Mad King had wanted, so the rope was fastened in such a way so that it tightened as he pulled. As he struggled to reach the blade, the rope just kept tightening until my poor Brandon couldn't breath and he couldn't fight anymore."

She paused again and silently glared at Rhaegar for a long while with hate like Rhaegar had never seen.

"So my love died and his brother, who had been promised to me, was forced to marry the woman that my Brandon was too marry. In the end I married a Dustin as had always been my father's intention."

Rhaegar didn't know what to say. He knew about the war, but he didn't know about Uncle Brandon or Grandfather Rickard. He didn't know.

"I-I-I'm sorry," the dragon of just nine managed to choke out.

Lady Dustin continued to silently stare at him. She reached out and brushed his hair out of his face and wiped away tears that had started to form.

"You look so much like him," she leaned in closer and wistfully went on. "Not Prince Rhaegar, but my Brandon. If the little grey rat had never whispered in Lord Rickard's ear, I might have had a son just like you. A little boy with pale skin, dark shaggy hair, and grey eyes. I think I would have liked that."

Rhaegar wanted very much to cry, but he tried his best to hold back tears.

"You didn't want to cause trouble, that's why you left the celebration. You don't want your protector to hurt someone for saying something while they're drunk and out of control, right?"

Rhaegar wordlessly shook his head in agreement and Lady Dustin responded with a thin melancholic smile.

"You're nothing like Rhaegar," and with that, Lady Dustin left the little dragon standing alone in the cold to linger on her words.

...

 **296 AC**

Rhaegar drowsily roused himself from his bed. It was early, but it was his name day and his uncle had promised to take him on a hunt in the Wolfswoods. The boy always enjoyed his name day, but he always felt queer about the gifts he received from people he had never met. It felt a bit like he was stealing from some other little boy. A boy who through a series of unfortunate circumstances never received any of the gifts his relatives sent him. The gifts from his brother, the king, were generally the most impressive. Aegon had sent him a Dornish stallion when he turned one and ten. The horse was beautiful, but not bred for the colder lands of the North. His sister Rhaenys once sent him several sacks full of seeds. The note accompanying the gift told him that they were from some of the most beautiful roses in all of the Reach. Like the Dornish stallion, the roses were from and for a warmer land. Still, Rhaegar was thankful for the gifts all the same. Maester Luwin helped him write thank you letters to those who had sent him gifts, though the was more of Maester Luwin's words in the letters than his own thoughts. Lord Eddard sent gifts to his sister and brother on Rhaegar's behalf so that they would know that he was thinking of them as well.

He'd once received a book from the High Septon himself with a letter saying.

 _It is our hope, and the hope of all the faithful in Westeros, that the heir to the Iron Throne is receiving adequate theological guidance in Winterfell. To help you in your studies, we wish to bestow upon you, Prince Rhaegar, on this your name day, a collection of stories and writings on the faith and the Seven._

He'd read the book, or at least part of it, but had never properly studied it as he suspected the High Septon would have wanted him to. His gods were not his father's gods or the gods of the High Septon. For Rhaegar worshiped in the Godswood rather in the sept Lord Eddard had crafted for Lady Catelyn. His gods were those of his mother and his uncle. Still, it had not been the most useless gift he had ever received, as Arya had enjoyed hearing him read some of the stories to her. Especially those about the Warrior and the Stranger. One of his more useless gifts had been a queer looking cream colored stone that was streaked with gold. It must have been a hollowed out piece of art as it was far lighter than any stone its size should have been. Perhaps, he should have been impressed with the level of craftsmanship needed to make such a piece, but it had not managed to catch his eye when he'd received it all those years ago. Since then, it gathered dust upon a shelf that was only now beginning to be within Rhaegar's reach.

On occasion, Rhaegar would even receive visitors at and around his name day. Mostly it was Ser Jon Connington coming south from the Wall to wish him well, though once a man from Dorne had arrived and stayed with them for several weeks. Rhaegar didn't recall the Dornishman's name, he'd been but eight when the man had come to Winterfell, but he remembered enjoying watching the man spare with Ser Arthur. The way he used a spear against the knight's sword had fascinated him. It had been an enchanting dance that he and Robb had watched as if they were transfixed. For weeks afterwards the two would try and emulate the battle between the Dornishman and Ser Arthur, taking turns with the spear and sword. Aside from the gift of bringing joy and excitement to Rhaegar, the Dornishmen had presented him with a sword that now adorned his wall. It was a beautiful ceremonial blade with gold and silver filigree and a dragon head pommel. Like the ridiculous stone he had received, the sword was more a work of art than a weapon, and was completely impractical for fighting, but it was a work of art that Rhaegar could appreciate even as a small boy.

Ser Jon didn't bring many gifts when he would come, but he brought stories. Stories of ranging north of the Wall, of fighting Wildlings and snow bears, and of Rhaegar's distant relative Aemon. He liked the stories, he liked the idea of being a black brother in the Night's Watch and of standing guard against the things creeping out of the Land of Always Winter. Maybe one day he would ride out into the lands beyond the Wall with his uncle Benjen and Ser Jon as a ranger like the both of them. Ser Arthur would be unhappy about that, so would Ser Jon. Both of them said Rhaegar's place was south of the Wall when he'd brought it up to them in the past. Still, it was pleasant to dream about adventures with those he cared for.

After dressing himself, Rhaegar made his way to the stables where he knew his uncle would be waiting for him. When he arrived Lord Eddard and Ser Arthur were speaking softly and ceased their conversation when he was close enough for them to hear him kick up the hay and sawdust that covered the stable floor. Lord Eddard smiled when his eyes met Rhaegar's. It was the honest smile of a man who loved him dearly.

"Come along, Rhaegar, we must prove to Ser Arthur that I'm not an incompetent old fool."

"I-I don't understand?" An unsure Rhaegar responded.

"Ser Arthur is worried about the two of us venturing out into the woods alone. He believes that we will need the fabled Sword of the Morning Star to defend us against snarks and grumkins." Lord Eddard laughed and gave Ser Arthur and Rhaegar a disarming smile that forced the kingsguard to accept that he would not be venturing out with Rhaegar and Lord Eddard this morning.

It was still dark when the pair rode out from Winterfell and the music of the birds was still an hour or so away. Instead, the pair were treated to the chirping or insects and the occasional hooting of a great horned owl. The powerful birds grew large enough to take small sheep or goats, and, if Old Nan spoke truthfully, sometimes little children as well.

Uncle and nephew spoke little during the ride out to the wood and even less once they arrived. After they tied up their horses they silently made their way through the bramble and the underbrush looking for the tell tale signs of prey. For hours, the pair wordlessly tracked an stag deeper into the wood until they spotted it at last. Lord Eddard said nothing, he only looked to Rhaegar and looked back to the stag, but the look told the prince what he must do. He notched his arrow, pulled back on the bow string, and took aim. It took all his strength to pull back on the bowstring and he could only maintain it at full draw for a few moments, but it was enough. He let loose the arrow and it struck home. The stag wailed in agony as the arrow drove deep into its side, just behind its front left leg. A second arrow followed Rhaegar's, slamming into the hind left leg of the the elk as it fled.

Rhaegar's heart beat so fast he could have danced too its rhythm as he ran with his uncle and followed the trail of blood.

"Bubbles," Lord Eddard proclaimed triumphantly as he pointed towards a spatter of blood. Rhaegar beamed with pride. He'd struck the stag in the lung; the beast would not be escaping them. The trail of blood became more pronounced until to two regained sight of the struggling beast. Exhausted, lung filling with blood, and in a great deal of pain, the great beast staggered forward wearily. Lord Eddard grabbed Rhaegar by his shoulder as the prince attempted to get closer. His uncle shook his head, cautioning the boy against approaching the animal.

"When an animal is on its last legs is when it is at its most dangerous. A dying stag can gore a man with its antler or cave in their chest with a well placed kick," his uncle whispered.

Together they watched as the stag fought to remain standing only to stumble forward again and again. Though Rhaegar was proud of his first real hunt, he was also saddened watching the mighty beast crumple to the forest floor. It wheezed and moaned and kicked, fighting off what it must have known was inevitable at this point. At last, it let out its final few dying breaths before it succumbed to the dragon and the wolf.

The pair cautiously approached the fallen stag. When they at last confirmed that the beast was dead, Rhaegar embraced his uncle and hugged him tightly while Lord Eddard patted him on the back and ruffled his hair.

"I love you, Uncle Eddard," the prince said as he reveled in his triumph and in the happiness of the moment.

"And I will always love you, Rhaegar."

...

Edit/Author's Note: There seems to be a few people who are unsure as to why Jon is named Rhaegar. In canon Jon is named after Eddard's mentor and friend Jon Arryn, which is likely a way of further throwing off any suspicion, real or imagined, of Jon's true identity from Robert and anyone else. With Robert dead and Tywin putting an infant Aegon on the Iron Throne, there is no immediate threat to Jon like their was with Robert alive. Lyanna names her new born after her recently deceased love and Eddard not needing to protect the prince's identity keeps the name.


	4. Prelude: The Hostaged Kraken

**The Hostaged Kraken**

 **291 AC**

They say that when a kraken washes up on shore it goes boneless. A captive in Riverrun, Asha Greyjoy understood that feeling all too well. When her father had tried to prove how weakened the dragons had become by rebelling and proclaiming himself King of the Iron Islands, he had expected to win a string of stunning victories, but Rodrik had been captured in the Riverlands, the Stormlord Stannis Baratheon had smashed the Iron Fleet, and then the greenlanders began conquering the islands proper. Her uncles, Victarion and Aeron, had sunk beneath the waves, a similar fate was likely to have befallen her Uncle Euron, but the Riverlords liked to spin tales about how he'd turned tail and run away to some port in the far off eastern seas. Her brother Maron had died defending Pyke, and her father had been executed for treason. Little Theon had been put to the sword by the monster of a man that was the Mountain. When the rebellion had ended, all that remained of House Greyjoy was herself and her drunk of a brother Rodrik. Left a cripple after his failure to take Seaguard, Rodrik had taken to supplementing his drinking habit with a new formed addiction to milk of the poppy. Asha had not seen her brother in the two years since the rebellion's end, but she trusted the hatred the Riverlanders held for her kind to believe them when they joked about his addiction behind her back.

It wasn't just them either. She knew what kind of a man Rodrik was and what kind of a drunken fool he had been before the rebellion. That he now spent his days drinking milk of the poppy and having his affairs dictated to him by some Frey woman was all too believable. Beyond his addiction, they joked about his willy. They snickered about him being Rodrik "the lame" or the "Legless Squid" and said he'd never give old Walder Frey a grandson. The Riverlords meant it all as in insult; they meant to joke about how he was less of a man, but out of all the things that Asha could hate Rodrik for, she couldn't hate him for keeping a greenlander from ruling over the Iron Islands. Still, she knew full well what an heirless Rodrik meant for her. She was a skinny pimply faced girl of five and ten, but she was a woman now and soon she would be married to Edmure Tully. When Rodrik eventually died without issue, she would take his place and so it would come to pass that the Tullys would emulate Harren the Black, but in reverse. The Iron Islands would cease to be, they would bound to the Riverlands and the old ways that her father had hoped to revive would be lost to time forever.

They'd steal her children from her when she had them and foster them in Riverrun with their grandfather so that they could be proper Riverlanders. She knew her future and there was nothing she could do about it, for she was a kraken who had been washed up upon the shore and gone all bonless.

The arrival of guests at Riverrun distracted her for a time. Standing at Edmure's side, along with the dozens of other bannermen, guests, and household attendants, Asha watched as the Castilian of Casterly Rock, Ser Jaime Lannister, and his bride-to-be, Princess Arianne Martell, made their way forward. The princess and Asha were the same age, but there was a world of difference between herself and the olive skinned beauty at Jaime Lannister's side. Behind the pair were their own attendants as well as the dwarf of Casterly Rock and Lord Gerion Lannister of Ten Towers and his captive bride, Lady Brynhildr Harlaw.

As Ser Jaime drew nearer, Asha caught a glimpse of a moonstone pommel at his hip and knew that he now wore the Valyrian Steel blade, Nightfall. The blade of House Harlaw which had once belonged to the great reaver Dalton Greyjoy now adorned the hip of the Lannister they called Kingslayer. This procession, this small group of people was proof that the Iron Islands and the old ways were dead. Asha could kill them all, or at least she could try, but that wouldn't change a damn thing. The old ways were fucked and it wasn't just that they were fucked now, they'd been fucked for a while. They hadn't belonged in this world since before the damned Dance.

"It is a pleasure to see you again, Lord Hoster," Ser Jaime started.

"Certainly, Ser Jaime," Lord Hoster's face remained stern, though his tone was somewhat genial.

Asha didn't need to be a greenseer or a woods witch to know that Lord Hoster was not a fan of the Kingslayer.

"I present to you, my bride-to-be, Princess Arianne Martell of Dorne."

The Dornish girl bowed her head slightly and raised her hand for the Lord Hoster to lean forward to kiss. She was a princess of Dorne, not a captive Iron Islander, she commanded the kind of respect that Asha would never receive from any of the lords of the Riverlands.

"And my uncle, Lord Gerion, and his wife Lady Brynhildr."

Lady Brynhildr looked like a miserable cowed woman, but when her husband bowed she lingered for just a few extra seconds more before she too curtsied. The poor woman had been traded like a thing; her father, Lord Hotho Harlaw of the Tower of Glimmering, had traded her to Lord Tywin's brother after he'd been made the Lord of Ten Towers. Now Hotho the Hunchback held a special place in the court of the lion of Harlaw.

Lord Gerion turned away from Lord Hoster towards Asha, "My Lady, I look forward to the day when you and Lord Edmure return to Pyke."

Asha didn't respond with words, she just silently nodded. After the introductions were done, the guests were shown to their quarters while everyone prepared to feast together. For a time, it was just Asha and Edmure.

Edmure was not the most impressive man she had ever known, but he'd yet to try and rape her when they were alone, which was something she had largely expected when she'd been shipped off to Riverrun. Edmure mostly fidgeted as they walked the halls. He tried to talk about the weather but found himself stumbling about until he finally found something he must have felt was worth talking about.

"Did you see the Kingslayer?" He spat.

Asha wordlessly shook her head.

"How can he show his face? It's like he's laughing at everyone. Like he's laughing at father. He knows that father won't say a thing about it. He knows that no one will say a damn thing about what he did and how he got rewarded for it, because of who his father is, so he just laughs at us."

Asha eyed Edmure queerly. She knew he was trying to find something to talk with her about, he'd been trying for months now, but this certainly wasn't what she'd imagined he would try bonding over.

"Why are you bitching about it to my like a gossipy lady in waiting? If you think he's a smug little cunt with his stolen sword and his non-existent honor then tell him he is."

"Stolen sword?" Edmure fixated on the new accusation rather than addressing Asha's point.

"Did you see the moonstone pommel sword he carried on his hip?"

"Yes."

"That's Nightfall, it belongs to House Harlaw, or it did before they killed Harras and his father in the war."

A confused Edmure scratched at his temple, "Wait, but I thought the Kingslayer's uncle had married into the the Harlaws?"

"Aye, he did, but that's the Harlaws of the Tower of Glimmering. They put the Harlaws of Grey Garden and the Harlaws of Ten Towers to the sword."

"I see. So the Harlaws were a bit like the Freys then?"

"What?"

"Well, it's just that there are so many Freys in so many places that it's a bit difficult to keep track of them all."

Asha eyed him for a bit before replying, "I suppose they were, but now most of them are dead. My mother is one of the last of them."

Edmure's eyes widened as if he'd known Asha's relation to House Harlaw and forgotten it at the most inopportune time.

"I apologize, My Lady."

"What are you apologizing for? Did you slaughter them all? I thought it was Lannister and Baratheon men that done most of the killing?"

"Well, yes… but I was giving my condolences."

"Do you think your condolences are going to get you in me knickers easier? Do those condolences help when you go wenching?"

Edmure went white and then he went red. The older boy's cheeks were flushed and he choked slightly. He didn't look like someone of seven and ten. In that moment he looked far smaller.

"I!" his voice was raised, but he paused and exhaled forcefully,"No, I um… well I think I must go see my father and you'll probably want to freshen up a bit. I'll see you at dinner." With that, Edmure fled from Asha.

The feast was mostly cordial. Asha noticed that the normally loud and boisterous Edmure was largely courteous throughout the dinner. Maybe the attack to his pride and knocked the fool down a bit.

Asha found herself in the company of the Lannister dwarf.

"Beautiful, isn't she?" The halfman asked.

"Arianne?"

"Who else?" A smug grin on his face.

"People have names for a reason, dwarf."

"That they do. Mine for instance is Tyrion and not dwarf. Though you wouldn't be the first person to think that and I certainly don't believe that you will be the last."

"You know they kill your kind where I come from." she retorted with hope that it would get the smug little shit to close his mouth or at least restrict its usage to eating.

"And where I'm from they killed a lot of yours," the dwarf responded.

Asha gripped her fork tightly. She could jab the damn thing into the the runts brain through this ugly eye and there would be nothing anyone could do to stop her, but she didn't. She glared daggers at the little monster, but she didn't try to impale him on one.

"That was a bit harsh, I know you lost most of your family in the war."

"Be quiet runt or I'll regret not jabbing you in the throat with my fork enough that you won't make it out of dinner alive."

The dwarf smiled a bit at that, though Asha hadn't said anything she'd thought would bring him mirth.

"You and Edmure certainly will make a better match than we ever would have. I'd likely have ended up tossed into the sea." he took another swig of wine.

"What?"

"My father had originally intended for me to wed you so that a Lannister might govern all of the Iron Islands and put your fleet to use for the Westerlands, but there were a few too many dissenting voices for him to push that plan. So Lord Hoster took you for his son's future bride."

She'd known that her fate had been decided by men she'd never met before, but she hadn't realized that she'd been a piece of a larger game that the lords were playing.

"Does it make you feel small knowing how your fate was bargained over like a fish at market?"

She hated to admit it, but it did,"A bit."

"Then make yourself big."

"The fuck does that even mean?"

Tyrion smirked and let out a slight laugh before he answered, "It means that you need to learn to play the game so that you stop getting played. You shouldn't be here chatting with me. You should be sitting with Edmure fawning over him, or at least faking it, while you make conversation with my brother and his bride to be. You might not realize it, but I suspect that you and she would have a lot more in common than you might think."

"So pretending to be the doting wife is your grand advice? Spec-fucking-tacular. You wouldn't happen to be a woods witch now would you? I've got loads of other questions that I'd like to ask if you are."

"I realize that it seems like rather simple advice and advice that you aren't particularly fond of hearing, but half… now more than half of the game is bold face lying so that you can get what you want. I hear that Edmure gets drunk and goes wenching. I have no judgments to make against him for that, but I do have judgments against you for not making him feel like he never needs to go wenching. It's a perfect opportunity for you and you're passing it up."

"So's I should give him my maiden head is what you're saying?"

The dwarf sighed before responding, "I am saying that you need to make him need you. You need to make him your ally or you're going to be all alone and so very small in a game you can barely comprehend. A game that for all my talk I can barely comprehend. The quickest way into a man's heart and, more importantly, into his head is between his legs. "

"Maybe you're right dwarf, but I'm an Iron Islander, and we don't act like love struck little girls when we want something. We take it."

"And how did that work out for your father?"

The words stung. Not because she knew he was wrong, but because she knew he was right. The old ways had failed. They'd failed her father, they'd failed Dalton after he'd kept raiding when the Dance was done, even Harren the Black knew the old ways were done when he built his great cursed castle.

After the feast came to an end, she lingered in the hall. Edmure had finally started to get loud after drinking too much wine and he was beginning to drop not so subtle hints about his feeling regarding the Kingslayer.

"What was it like to put a knife in Aerys' back? You feel anything?"

He'd make a mess of things if he was allowed to go on. There would certainly be a great amount of comedic value in watching the drunken Edmure get the shit kicked out of him by the Kingslayer, but as she watched her future husband get closer and closer to making a fool of himself she thought about what the dwarf had said and she decided to start playing the game.

Moving quickly to Edmure's side she grasped his hand in her own.

"I'm sorry to interrupt your conversation, My Lords, but my dear Edmure and I have been apart all evening and I'd like to have a private conversation with him before we go to sleep."

"Wha?" the drunken Edmure managed to sputter out.

Rather than waste words, Asha kissed him. His breath was foul and tasted of fish and wine.

It had been the first time she'd ever done that with him and the first time she'd done it to anyone in three years, but it had worked. Edmure shook his head and slurred out a few more words. "Yesh, I shink I musht shpek wit my wovewy wishe."

Asha led Edmure out of the dining hall, through the castle hallways, and up the stairs towards her solar. The dwarf was right. She needed to be a player in the game. She needed to be take command of her situation so that she didn't end up like Lady Brynhildr. The old ways might have failed, but the sentiment behind them still had its purpose. She would not become a greenlander and her children would not be greenlanders. She was Asha Greyjoy, she was Ironborn, and she would be Lady of the Isles and the Rivers.

...


	5. Prelude: The Smuggler Lord

**The Smuggler Lord**

 **294 AC**

Seeing Lord Stannis cradling his daughter, Cassana, was a sight Davos Seaworth was pleased to behold. There was a bond between his liege lord, his lady wife Mina, and their four daughters that looked to be as old as time. This connection seemed to overwrite all the darkness which Davos had seen at Lord Stannis' wedding. Though nearly a decade had passed since that night, the old smuggler remembered the mood well. He was not a man of the arts, but if someone had painted a likeness of Lord Stannis that evening, Davos almost certainly would have said it depicted a man who had been defeated. Though the Lady Mina was a young and lovely thing with fair hair and skin, and dimples that radiated joy when she smiled, her last name had been Tyrell and with that name she may as well have been as terrible to look upon as the Brindled Men of Sothoryos or Maelys the Monstrous.

What political machinations had forced Lord Stannis to marry the Tyrell girl were as of yet beyond the smuggler's knowledge, but they must have been a powerful thing, because the hate that Lord Stannis felt for the Reachmen, and specifically for Mace Tyrell, was a thing to behold. Not once during the entirety of the marriage ceremony had Lord Stannis spoken the Lady Mina's brother, Mace. The Lord of the Reach had besieged Stannis, and very nearly starved him out. Davos had helped stave that off with his smuggled onions, but it had been Stannis' strength of will that had kept the castle from falling. For all the hardship that Lord Stannis had been placed through by Mace during his brother Robert's rebellion, his liege lord could not forgive nor would he forget.

It had been watching Lord Stannis and his new wife dance their first dance as man and wife that Davos had begun to fear that the siege would not remain in the past and that its memory would be like a poison, eating away at the marriage, so he had forgotten his place and spoken to Lord Stannis.

"Her brother's sins aren't her own." he'd started. "I wouldn't expect you to ever look favorably upon Mace Tyrell, I might be like to think less of you if you said you did as I'd know that was a lie, but that girl is good and she deserve to be treated as such."

He'd remembered the glare he'd received from his lord, and he'd thought that his time as a man with a title would be cut short by his own words, but Stannis had not rebuked him nor had he cast him out; instead, he had listened. Now Davos was good father to the eldest of Lord Stannis' four daughters, Shireen, and he liked to think he was a close friend to the Lord Paramount of the Stormlands.

"Cassana's her mother's eyes," Stannis said, pulling Davos out of the past.

"She'll be beautiful, My Lord," the Onion Lord offered.

"Aye, she will." he said, not taking his eyes off the little bundle in his arms. "Hopefully she'll be joined in a year's time by a little brother."

"I do look forward to the day that I can visit a young Davos Baratheon," he joked.

"I was thinking Robert for the first boy, or maybe Steffon with the second boy taking your name."

"I meant it in jest, My Lord."

"I know that you did. I've an understanding of humor, Davos," he paused for a moment and looked up from his daughter, "but what I said wasn't in jest."

The Onion Lord smiled, "Thank you, My Lord. It is a great honor."

Stannis sighed lightly, "Don't thank me yet, Lord Davos. I've asked you to see me because I'm sending you away from your home."

"I will do what I can in your service, My Lord."

"I have extended my support to Lord Tywin's scheme to carve most of the Crownlands into the Baylands as well as Lord Jon Arryn's Charter for the Rights of Lords. Both are important steps in ensuring that no monarch will see himself as being above the law again. This will be the lasting legacy of my brother's rebellion, a peace that will do as much for the rule of law as Jaehaerys I's codification of a united law code."

"I can't say I understand much about that other than that making it more difficult for the king to burn a Lord Paramount alive is probably a good thing. That being said, I'm unsure what you are asking of me? If you would rather me deliver your approval rather than sending confirmation by raven, I'll gladly do it, but I cannot ride as fast as a raven can fly."

Stannis shook his head a little. "No, Lord Davos, I do not wish for you to ride to deliver a message, I wish for you to go to King's Landing to act as the representative of the Stormlands on the Council of Lords that Lord Arryn has concocted to go along with his charter."

"I'm sorry, My Lord. I'm not sure I understand. What exactly would I be doing?"

"As part of the charter, a body is being created, separate from the Small Council, that is to speak for the great lords of the realm. Though the king is a boy at this time, but he will grow into a man soon enough. It will be the job of this Council of Lords to vote on any law that the king might propose. Unlike the Small Council that may be filled with anyone the King sees fit, the Council of Lords will have a representative from all ten of the major regions of Westeros who will vote to authorize increase in taxes, declarations of war, modifications to the legal code, and other such matters."

"My Lord, I'm honored that you would offer me such a position, but I am sure there are more qualified men who could take this position. What little I have learned to read thanks to what Shireen has taught me will hardly be enough for such a task."

"There will be hours in the years to come where time is of the essence and no raven will be able to fly fast enough for a round trip from King's Landing to Storm's End. In such an hour I would trust few to do what is right and necessary for the Stormlands and the realm as a whole. I count you as one of those few. I am sending you into a den of men whose ambition can only be rivaled by their egos, but I can see no man better for the task. Should you require more reading lessons, I will hire a tutor and send them with you too the capital."

Davos was honored, but this was too great of a responsibility to place in the hands of a smuggler.

"What of you brother Renly, surely it would be a wiser choice to name him as representative of the Stormlords?"

Stannis shook his head.

"Your confidence in my brother's capabilities would surely flatter him, but he is too young and too driven by other desires for me to have him on this Council of Lords. No, in a year or two he will have a place on the Small Council and you will have enough experience to aid him in advising the king and containing Lord Tywin."

Davos knew that he could reject the offer made by the Lord of Storm's End, but he knew that he couldn't. Lord Stannis trusted him to represent the Stormlands, so he would go to King's Landing.

…

Saying goodby to his wife and sons had been difficult, but he was not going back to Flea Bottom. The city he was going to was not the one he had been born in or spent much of his early life in. The ship he now found himself looking out at the city on, was taking him to a place that few of his birth would ever see. A place of dangers that Davos knew would vary in familiarity. So it was with this in mind that he had left for his duties in the capital without his wife and sons.

 _They'll come later. After I've become more acquainted with this place._

It was strange for the old smuggler to see the docks lined with attendants and men of the city guard waiting for him. These men weren't there to try and extort a bit of money of of him or to try and find something to lop his head off for. Instead, they were there to escort him safely to the Red Keep and make sure his things were taken to his new place of residence without being molested.

After making his way off the ship onto the docks, a smiling man with a thin goatee greeted him with an outstretched hand.

"It is a pleasure to meet you and greet you on your return to the city, Lord Seaworth."

The man was smiles and pleasantries, but had the mannerisms of huckster. Davos had known men like him before, they were good with names and faces and flatteries so that they could con a good smuggler into doing something stupid or get a bad smuggler to do something insane.

"It's good to be back, Lord?"

"Petry Baelish."

 _Baelish_.

Davos knew the name. Despite having given up on his days as a smuggler, the Onion Lord still knew men who made their living skirting around the taxman and he'd come to know of the man they called the Lord of Gulltown. That Gerold Grafton and his family had established themselves as lords of Gulltown with the Andal invasion was of little consequence when the man with the most money and power in the city was the man that now stood before Davos.

"It's very good to meet you Lord Baelish, though you're far from Gulltown. If you've come to collect any outstanding debts, I must say that I've not been to Gulltown in many years."

Baelish gave a thin smile, "Oh nothing of the sort, Lord Seaworth. I've simply come to greet a fellow councilman before your confirmation by the king, as I've been doing these past few weeks when they have arrived."

"Will any of the other councilmen be joining us on the docks?"

"Sadly, we will have to wait until we have returned to the throne room for their company. Have you eaten? I'm sure that after the confirmation, Lord Wendel Manderly will be having another one of his mid afternoon meals to hold him over until dinner. He'd most certainly enjoy the company."

"Tend not to eat much on a voyage. Filling your belly with gristle and slop on the waves is a good way to be heaving that meal up thirty minutes later."

"Good, good. Lord Manderly will surely enjoy our company."

Davos was less certain of that than he was that this customs officer from Gulltown was a dangerous man whose intentions were as of yet a mystery.

The ride from the docks to the Red Keep went well, they'd passed by people that Davos known in another life, people who might have called out to him were it not for the fact that they knew it to be impossible for Davos the smuggler to be riding with lords and royal guardians. His old life in the city and his old profession seemed a lifetime away. A decade as a landed lord, with his own little keep and his own little wood to hunt in had changed him some. He still recognized the people, but the people didn't recognize him.

Once they had arrived at the castle, Baelish escorted him to the king. Various folk stood along the sides of the great hall that held the Iron Throne at its head. They were court attendants, kingsguard, Lords of the Small Council and of this new secondary council, and others that Davos knew not what their role was. And sitting at the head of this gathering in the great and mangled throne of seemingly uncountable swords was a boy of just two and ten. Near the Throne's base stood a man in ceremonial armor of armor of red and gold. The man the small folk murmured about being the real king, Lord Tywin Lannister.

Davos was called forward and as he walked to Lord Tywin and the boy king he did his best to listen to the whispers of those he passed by. A group of Reachmen were all too easy to hear, for they made no attempt to hold back their disdain for a man who had risen far above his station.

When he came to at last to the twisted mass of blades he knelt. With his right hand Lord Tywin had him rise. Then the little dragon king spoke.

"It honors the throne to welcome you, the rep...rep..representative of the Riverlands to King's Landing, Lord… um.. Lord… Frey!"

Lord Tywin's face remained as grim as it had been when Davos had first knelt, but the way his eyes had moved slightly, as if stopping themselves from darting in the direction of the little king, told Davos a bit of how the Lord of Casterly Rock might be feeling.

"I beg your pardon, Your Grace, but I am Davos Seaworth, the representative from the Stormlands." he tried to say as nicely to the boy as possible.

The little king's eyes widened and he looked a bit like he swallowed his tongue. He sat and looked wide eyed at Davos for a good while before he finally broke his silence.

"Lord Frey was yesterday… I-I-I'm sorry, Lord Davos, I'm really sorry." He sounded pained and his cheeks had turned a bright red as the fair skinned little boy blushed hard.

"There's nothing to apologize for, Your Grace." he tried to reassure the little king.

"No...um.. We can do it again. I can get it right if we do it agai-."

Lord Tywin cut the little boy off, "I'm sure this will do, Your Grace. We should carry on with the ceremony."

The little king nodded his head in agreement and then looked back to Davos.

"It honors the throne to welcome you, the representative of the Stormlands to King's Landing, Lord…" the little dragon king visibly strained himself to recall the Onion Lord's name. "Davos Seaworth!" He smiled before realizing that he'd shouted out the name. "I, Aegon VI, do confirm your place on the Council of Lords."

The little king smiled down at Davos, though it was fairly apparent that he was more smiling about having completed the task.

With that the throne room began to empty out as the observers of the ceremony departed. Waiting for Davos was Lord Baelish and a very fat man with a merman on his chest.

"Lord Seaworth, I'd like to introduce you to our Northern compatriot, Lord Wendel Manderly."

The fat lord was quick to speak.

"How much did you smuggle in and out of my father's city?"

Baelish seemed to wince, as if for some reason he had expected the fat little lord to be more tactful.

Davos wasn't about to lie to the man, so he spoke truthfully. "More than I can remember, Lord Manderly, though it's been some time since I sailed to the mouth of the White Knife, and since then Lord Stannis sentenced me for my crimes." he raised his hand to show where his liege lord had taken his fingers at the joints.

Manderly eyed him carefully before he stretched out his hand.

"You'll need to tell me some of your secrets over our luncheon, Onion Knight, my father will be happy to learn what needs to be done to cut down on smuggling."

Davos took the fat lord's hand and gave it a strong shake and after a hearty laugh said, "I'll do what I can Lord Manderly, but it's been many years since I last visited White Harbor, and old smugglers don't get old using the same tricks they've been using for a decade unless they want to be dead smuggler."

"Very well, but I insist you call me Wendel. Now let us go. I'm positively famished."

...

 **Representatives on the Council of Lords in 294 AC**

Representative of the North - Wendel Manderly

Representative of the Riverlands - Stevron Frey

Representative of the Vale - Petyr Baelish

Representative of Westerlands - Kevan Lannister

Representative of the Baylands - Monford Velaryon

Representative of the Iron Islands - Gerion Lannister

Representative of the Stormlands - Davos Seaworth

Representative of the Crownlands - Lucos Chyttering the elder

Representative of the Reach - Mathis Rowan

Representative of Dorne - Alyse Ladybright

...

 **The Lord of Storm's End and his Family**

Lord Stannis Baratheon 264 AC

Lady Mina Baratheon 265 AC (wife, maiden name Tyrell)

Shireen Baratheon 284 AC (daughter)

Jocelyn Baratheon 286 AC (daughter)

Agneta Baratheon 290 AC (daughter)

Cassana Baratheon 294 AC (daughter)

Lord Renly Baratheon 277 AC (brother)

...


	6. Prelude: The Princess of Peace

**The Princess of Peace**

 **291 AC**

 _Daenerys Targaryen was beautiful._

Staring up at the portrait of the gorgeous princess for what seemed like the thousandth time, little Dany hoped that one day she would be just as fair and loved as her namesake. The little dragon knew the story of the princess who brought peace very well. It was one of the stories that she loved to hear about the most. The little girl didn't admit it to her family, but one of her favorite parts of the life of her namesake was the romance between Daenerys and her half brother, Daemon Blackfyre. Something like that probably wasn't the sort of thing people in Dorne would have focused on. Though they loved love itself, Daenerys was best remembered by the Dornish as the princess that brought peace between Dorne and the Targaryen dynasty. Daenerys' marriage to Maron Martell had joined Dorne with the Iron Throne to bring the seven kingdoms of Westeros together. No more dragon fire would rain down upon Dornish peasants and lords, and the Targaryen's would never lose another dragon and its rider to the Dornish as they had lost Rhaenys and Meraxes.

Since Quentyn had left to be fostered with House Yronwood and Arianne had been sent to be married to Ser Jaime Lannister, Dany had grown fairly lonely. Trystane was nice enough, but he was just a boy of four, and Dany missed playing with his older brother and sister. She enjoyed being read to by Sarella Sand and she loved it when Tyene played with her hair and made her look pretty, but both of the girls came by the castle less and less often. Sarella was looking for new books, Dany supposed, and Tyene… well Dany wasn't certain what took up most of Tyene's time now. She wished she could have gone to Casterly Rock with Arianne to be one of her ladies in waiting or to Yronwood with Quentyn, but Prince Doran had said it was safest for her to stay in Sunspear. So now the lonely little girl read books when she was at Sunspear and tried to play with strangers when she was at the Water Gardens. On occasion she wrote to the brother she'd never met, to the King she was told was her nephew, to her niece in High Garden, and to her nephew in the far off North. It was a funny thing to think that she was an aunty to three children, two of which were older than her.

Interrupting her musings on her namesake and her loneliness, came the sound of Prince Doran's cane clicking against the floor as he made his way towards Dany.

"My child, the carriages are ready to take us to the Water Gardens."

"Coming, Prince Doran." She called out. She took one last look at the portrait before she bound towards the Prince of Sunspear.

The ride from Sunspear to the Water Gardens was not a particularly long one, given that it was only three leagues to the west, but without Quentyn and Arianne, the journey felt like it dragged on. Looking up from her copy of Grand Maester Munkun's _The Dance of Dragons, A True Telling_ , Dany decided to try and make conversation with Prince Doran who looked to be drifting in and out of sleep.

"Will Prince Oberyn be joining us?" she asked hopefully.

With a shake of his head, Prince Doran said, "No, my brother is like to be on a ship right now somewhere in the Narrow Sea."

"Oh." a disappointed Dany sighed.

Prince Oberyn was so handsome and charming and the way he danced so magnificent that Dany couldn't help but think him amazing.

"Is he going to the Free Cities again? I wish he'd have told me. I'd like to have seen them myself." she said wistfully.

"Venturing with my brother in the Free Cities is something I would forbid my own children from doing. You are much too young and the cities much too dangerous. No, there is nowhere safer for you than here in Sunspear."

Prince Doran gave Dany a warm and reassuring smile, but it didn't keep her from thinking about how she was more a caged songbird than a dragon.

"Besides, my child, my brother has not gone to the Free Cities. He ventures to a land of frost and ice, where it may snow even in the midst of summer."

"The North?" a surprised Dany questioned.

"The North." Prince Doran affirmed.

Given Prince Doran's minimalist answer and no offer of any more information, making inquiries was probably not the wisest course of action, but for the young girl it seemed all too obvious that she would want to know more about what the Prince was doing in the far off North.

"What's he doing in the North? Is he going to go see the Wall? I'd love to see the Wall. They say it was made with magic." She fired off in rapid succession, before a terrible thought. "He's not going to join the Night's Watch, is he?"

Prince Doran smiled and shook his head slightly.

"While my brother may decide to visit the Wall, simply to say that he has, he isn't going to the North to join the Watch. His appetites would never allow that."

Dany wasn't sure what Prince Oberyn being hungry had to do with joining the Night's Watch. She didn't recall any stories about the men of the Night's Watch needing to fast.

"But why is he up there, Prince Doran?" she questioned further.

"He goes to see children, my dear." the Prince of Sunspear sighed.

Would the Prince be bringing home more Sand Snakes? Or would they be Snow Snakes since Snow was the name for baseborn children in the North.

"Now trouble yourself no further with questions of my brother's whereabouts, sweetling. He will return to us, in time."

Despite her desire to know more, and maybe even talk about some of the things she knew about the North, Dany agreed to the Prince's request and returned to her book for the remainder of the journey to the Water Gardens.

...

A month had gone by since Dany had arrived at the Water Gardens. For a time, she had had great fun playing with other children, but most could not stay long enough for her to get well acquainted with them. She'd spotted several older boys and girls and had tried to become close with them, but quickly found that she wasn't very comfortable with them. The older boys and girls spent a lot of time doing things like kissing, and while Dany dreamed of her own Prince Daemon, she wasn't old enough to do more than dream about it. The idea of love and being loved was very nice, but the finer details of it were outside of both her understanding and her desire to engage in such details.

In the time since her withdrawal from playing in the Water Gardens, she had taken to reading again. She tried to read Beldecar's _History of the Rhoynish Wars_ , though many of the words were beyond her grasp and she found herself wishing that Sarella would arrive and help her read. Dany knew full well that she could ask Prince Doran or one of the tutors he provided her, but reading with them felt so different. As she struggled to read through a paragraph on Garin the Great's defeat of three Valeryian dragonlords, a knock came at her chamber door.

"Come in."

The door opened with a creaking sound, revealing Prince Doran.

"Sweetling, you have visitors."

"Who?" she excitedly wondered.

"Let us keep that a secret, for now."

Following the Prince out of her room to a private hall, Dany found three figures waiting for her while a number of other attendants made their way in the background. One of the figures was a little Dornish girl with violet eyes like her own, who looked to be a few years older than herself. Near the back of the left side of the girl's jaw there was a pronounced scar that was mostly hidden behind hair, but ultimately was still visible. One of the other looked the be the girl's mother. Her complexion was darker than that of her daughter's, but she looked strangely familiar. As if Dany had seen her before. She was both beautiful and haunting at the same time. Despite her beauty, the woman old beyond her years, with streaks of grey all through her hair and wrinkles around her eyes. Next to her was an older woman, dressed in green and gold. Her clothing was not made for the heat of Dorne, but was more in line with what Dany knew of more traditional Westrosi fashion.

Prince Doran introduced the three to Dany.

"My dear, I wish for you to meet my sister, a queen who never was, Princess Elia. Her daughter and your niece, Princess Rhaenys, and Lady Olenna Tyrell."

With the revelation of the Dornish woman's name, Dany realized why she seemed so familiar. She had gazed upon a portrait of the princess every time she had gone to look upon the beauty of her namesake.

It was the eldest of them, Lady Olenna, who stepped forward first to greet Dany.

"Such a lovely little thing. You will be a beautiful Princess of Dorne some day."

Dany wasn't quite sure what to make of that. Quentyn was to be Prince of Dorne when his father passed. She had no claim to Sunspear. Still it was probably the polite thing to be grateful for the compliment.

"Thank you, Lady Tyrell."

Then came Princess Elia, she wore an affectionate smile on her face that warmed Dany to the whole situation.

"It is a great pleasure to see you, my sister. She bent her knees and came down to a height where Dany did not have to arch her neck nearly as much and then stretched out a hand. You look like you mother... or my little Egg."

Dany could hear a pang of sadness in the woman's voice when she said that.

"Rhaenys say hello, to your aunt." she instructed the slightly older girl.

The older girl's expression was colder than her mother's. Her violet eyes were piercing and looked to be older than they had any right to be. It was a different kind of age from that which Princess Elia wore on her face. Where Princess Elia looked to be aged by sadness, worry, and stress, Princess Rhaenys' eyes were aged by something more malevolent.

"Good afternoon." she curtsied.

Dany did the same in return.

After the pleasantries, Prince Doran instructed Dany to show Rhaenys her room and her books, while the three adults spoke alone. Dany wanted to protest or at the very least ask what they were going to talk about, but she didn't want her sister by marriage to think less of her on their first meeting if she were to whine like little Trystane. So she did her duty and took the older girl with her too her quarters.

Glancing over to the girl as they walked through the hallways, she asked, "How old are you?"

"One and ten." Rhaenys responded brusquely.

"I'm almost eight." Dany replied in a cheerful tone hoping to win Rhaenys over with kindness.

In Dany's solar, she went about showing Rhaenys all the things that he had had carted over from Sunspear. She began with the petrified dragon egg she'd received as a nameday gift, all black with scarlet swirls and and waves.

Before she could move on to her impressive library, Rhaenys reached out and grabbed the egg.

"Careful, Prince Doran says it's priceless. I wouldn't want to break it."

Rhaenys just glared at the thing while she appraised it.

"It would be easier with dragons." she mumbled.

"What would?"

Rhaenys didn't answer. Instead, she set the egg back on the stand that prevented it from rolling off its perch and looked to Dany's bed and the book that sat upon it.

"I was just reading about Garin the Great and how he and his forces killed two dragons and sent a third running in retreat"- Dany paused for a moment before going on. -"or well I was trying to. I know the story from Sarella, but the book is still too hard for me."

The dark haired dragon princess went over to the book and opened it to the marked page. She looked at it for a long while before what appeared to be a smile momentarily formed on her face.

"What is it?" Dany inquired.

"I can hardly read many of these words myself." Rhaenys replied.

"I wouldn't be nearly as good, if it weren't for Sarella."

"Who is she?"

"Oh, she is one of Prince Oberyn's daughters. She used to come to the castle in Sunspear and read to me. She liked reading a whole lot. She even said that one day she would sneak into the citadel and and become a maester so that she could read all of their books." Dany giggled recalling that, because she knew that women couldn't be maesters.

"What other things do you like reading about, Daenerys?"

"You can call me Dany. I like it when people call me Dany." she said affectionately.

"Alright, what else do you like reading about, Dany?"

"Oh all sorts of things. I tried reading a book about the Dance. It was tough also, but reading about dragons and the Princess is was so exciting. OooH I also like reading about the Conquest, and about the Dornish Wars."

"You seem rather fond of dragons."

Dany shook her head in agreement.

"I rather like dragons too." Rhaenys paused and glanced down at the book. "Would you like to try and read this together?"

"Yes!" Dany was unable to contain her excitement.

Together, the two young dragons took their time trying to make sense of the book before them. They stumbled over words, struggled to find the proper pronunciations of others, and oohed and aahed at the terrible punishment the dragonlords of Old Valyria inflicted upon the Rhoynar. For hours they worked their way through the tome. After the girls had decided to take a break from reading the book Dany thought to ask a question of her new friend.

"Will you be living with us now?" she hoped from the bottom of her heart that the answer would be yes and that Rhaenys and she would be able lots of books in the years to come.

But the answer she received was, "No."

"No, we will not be here for long. I've to return to my betrothed, and we mustn't peek the curiosity of certain cats."

 _Cats?_

Dany didn't exactly understand what Rhaenys was talking about, but she did know that she was saddened to learn that the girl she had hoped would be her new friend would be leaving.

Rhaenys extended her hand and raised Dany's chin so that the two were looking at one another. The princess wore a feral looking smile that accentuated the predatory look in her eyes. "Don't be sad, Dany. Our separation will not last forever. One day, when I am Queen, you will be amongst my ladies in waiting and we can read to each other to our heart's content."

Dany smiled, she rather liked the sound of that.


	7. Shall We Dance: Rhaella I

**Shall We Dance**

 **Rhaella I**

The sea salt winds of Blackwater Bay brushed against the small girl's face and sent her long silver locks flowing in the wind. Were she to have had a less steady footing or a weaker grip on the titanic dragon's horns she may have been sent tumbling from her great and terrible mount to her death. Yet, she would be not cast off from the titan to be dashed against the rocks below. No, she would not be thrown from her dragon. She was the blood of old Valyria, fire made flesh. She was...

"Princess Rhaella! Get down from there, this instant!" screamed one of her mother's elderly ladies-in-waiting, Lady Laena Velaryon. She was an older woman in her mid sixties, though even in her advanced age all could see she carried in her the blood of Old Valyria with her lilac eyes and silver hair. For though she had only married into House Velaryon, she was of the Celtigars of Claw Isle, a sister of her father's bannerman, Lord Ardrian.

In an instant, the Princess of Dragonstone was no longer the warrior queen, Visenya Targaryen, standing atop her great and powerful mount, the dragon Vhagar. Instead, she was a small girl of just six, with scrawny limbs and teeth that had never come in properly, climbing atop one of the stone dragons that seemed to be everywhere in the castle nestled beneath Dragonmont.

"Yes, Lady Laena." Rhaella sulked and then groaned to herself.

"Why would you do such a thing?" The old woman's hands flailed about as if they added more power to her question. Lady Laena continued to berate the princess as she carefully made her way down from the stone behemoth.

"You know how your mother feels about your climbing!"

And indeed, the little princess knew how her mother felt about her fun and he wandering about the castle. She very vividly recalled how her lady mother had threatened to place weights around her ankles to prevent her from climbing atop the stone dragons the last time she had seen her having fun on Vhagar.

"One of these days you're going to fall and cripple yourself."

Rhaella was certain that such a thing would never happen. She was even footed and she had scaled the stone dragons enough times to know where all the best places to grip the beast were.

"Your mother would go mad if you were to ever fall from such a height."

The princess was less certain about Lady Laena being wrong on this matter than she would have liked to be. After her mother's most recent pregnancy with the prince she had intended on calling Daemon had not gone as planned, her mother had been hysterical for weeks. She had cried and refused to give up the little malborn princeling when Maester Rickard and her midwives had attempted to part the two. It had made Rhaella and her twin, Joanna, very sad to learn that the new sibling they had been expecting would not be arriving. Jaehaerys was still too young to understand it, and she doubted that her brother even knew what their mother's inflated belly had even meant. Rhaella's father had cried, and roared, and beaten his fists against the painted table until his knuckles were bloodied, but nothing rivaled the wailing and hysterics of her mother at the fate of little Daemon. Now she almost always kept Jaehaerys at her side and was stiflingly protective of the twins.

Lady Laena grabbed Rhaella's little hand in her own and began to drag her away from the stone dragon.

"You should consider yourself lucky that I don't want to place more stress on your poor mother's heart by telling her that you were disobeying her again."

"Thank you, Lady Laena." Rhaella moped.

The older woman shrugged and let out a heavy siegh. "You should behave more like a proper princess, like your sister. Who will marry a girl with hands roughened by climbing stone dragons and feet like the bottom of a dog's paws."

 _I don't want to be a proper lady._

No, she wanted to be a dragon queen. She wanted ride atop a real dragon and smash armies that numbered in the tens of thousands. But the dragons were dead and all she had was her stone monsters and her petrified egg.

"Maester Rickard is like to want you. I'll take you to him so that you may learn your sums for the day."

Rhaella groaned. She cared very little for speculative investments, Double-entry bookkeeping, tax rates, and all the other things that went into her lessons on sums. She was never going to be harbormaster… or would it be harbor mistress? Either way, dealing with such matters would fall to Jaehaerys when he was old enough and not her.

"Can we please go to father instead?" Rhaella began to plead.

"The Prince is taking meetings now, it would be most unwise to disturb him."

"But isn't learning about how to run the island and the port something I should do?"

Though she cared little about learning about the going ons of the port, she much preferred sitting with father and his court than sitting with crusty old Maester Rickard.

"Well, I suppose so, but you mustn't speak out of turn. Your father is a very busy man, and won't need you to distract him with any sort of buffoonery. Do you understand, Princess Rhaella?"

The little she-dragon shook her head, "Yes, Lady Laena. I understand."

The old woman smiled at her and then the pair made their way to the the room where father took his meeting. Two of the Dragon Cloaks stood at either side of the open doorway, but neither made a move to stop the little princess or her escort as the ventured into the room.

At the head of the great painted table, sat her father, Prince Viserys. He looked to be staring hard at the parchment in his hands while the Lyseni man that most called Yraemon, but her father sometimes referred to by some other name when she spied on them in the evening, stood at his side. Yraemon was a tall and slender man, with a similar look to her father and Lord Velaryon, though the Lyseni man's painted nails and the purple tongue that stretched from his bottom lip to his chin made him very distinctive among the various Valyrian blooded nobles of the the Baylands.

At the opposite end of the table, where the map cut off just before the Land of Always Winter, sat the Harbormaster, Ser Orson Sunglass.

Ser Orson was not a particularly fat man, but neither was he lite of frame like her father. His hair was the color of cobblestone, or at least what was left of it was.

"We have a smuggling problem, Your Grace." Yraemon said as Lady Laena seated Rhaella not far from her father. The old woman raised her finger to her lips and then gave Rhaella a smile before departing.

"But, Your Grace, revenue from the harbor has increased since your new tax."

"Not be the levels it should have." her father replied dryly.

"Yes, Prince Viserys is correct, the percentages a problematic. They imply an increase in the bypassing of Dragonstone."

Ser Orson wiped his sweating brow with his sausage like fingers before he spoke again. "Your Grace, the problem isn't here, I swear it. Your Lyseni spymaster has rooted out any corruption in my office and in the ranks of the Dragon Cloaks. He knows that I'm loyal." there was an air of fear in the man's somewhat shaky voice and Rhaella knew why.

She had heard household attendants speak of how father had grown more cruel over the ordeal with the neverborn prince, and how the Lyseni spymaster had fanned the flames of his fury. Though she had not seen it with her own eyes, she remembered the day that the Prince of Dragonstone hung twenty men. Five of them had been men in the harbormaster's office, three more had been Dragoncloaks, and the rest had been smugglers and tax cheats.

"That seems rather obvious, Orson. You'd be in a cell right now awaiting the an appointment with the hangman if I suspected that you were skimming profits." The prince coolly responded.

"No, I've had Lord Rykker's harbormaster send me his books and it would appear that some of our lost trade is going into Duskendale." he said presenting a dark leather bound ledger.

The chubby Ser Orson breathed deeply in what Rhaella assumed must have been relief.

"You may return to your duties, Orson." Prince Viserys dismissed the man with a wave of his hand and a sharp glare.

After the harbormaster had departed, the door to the room was shut with a clang and her father and Yreamon began to speak, but Rhaella had too many questions to just stay silent.

'Why did you frighten Ser Orson like that, papa?" she asked.

Her father was quick to respond.

"Because he might have been a thief. You remember what happens to little thieves who try and steal from dragons don't you, dear?"

Rhaella shook her head, no. Not because she didn't know what happened to thieves who stole from dragons in the stories, but because her father wasn't being honest.

"You already knew about Duskendale and you knew that it wasn't him so why bother bringing him in."

"Because there is someone in the harbormaster's office who is stealing." he responded very matter-of-factly.

"What?"

Her father lifted up the ledger that he had claimed had been sent over from Duskendale and then opened it up.

The pages were blank. There was not a word writ upon them. Not a single smudge or stain.

"I don't understand? You said…"

"I lied, little one. A bribed harbor guard or collector in Duskendale isn't going to list a ship that has no stamp from the harbormaster of Dragonstone. That would be as good as admitting their thieving. No, I need to know who is the rot in Dragonstone so that, like a gangrenous limb, I may cut them out. With them we will find their conspirators in the other stretches of the Baylands."

It was at this point that Yraemon spoke, "The source of the issue in the harbormaster's office will alert us to their improprieties soon enough, princess."

"But why does it matter? We're still making a money aren't we? And anyways, you've said the Dragonvault makes us more money in a year than the harbor will in ten."

Her father sighed, "The bank is very important to us, yes, but there is not always money in the bank. Sometimes we loan it out. But not having any dragons in the Dragonvault for too long could be dangerous, so we always need extra coin on hand. And not just for the bank, but for gifts for you and your siblings, the construction projects that will make Dragonstone look like Old Valyria reborn, and perhaps an army if the need were to arise."

The small princess still didn't understand.

"What about grandfather and Uncle Jaime? Couldn't we just ask them for gold?"

Her father seemed to wince at the mention of the Lannister mines in the Westerlands.

"Rhaella, do you know why gold is worth so much?" her father's voice had started out higher and with a tinge of anger to it when he'd said her name, but had calmed quickly.

"Because it's pretty?"

The prince smiled down at her, "No, it's not because it's pretty."

 _Why is gold valuable? Why?_

"Because it's heavy?"

Again, her father shook his head no.

"Because it's special?"

"But why is it special?"

At last the girl shook her head in defeat. "I don't know."

"Because it is rare. There are a great many metals that have a great many uses, but gold is so valuable because it is rare. Now if I were to have your grandfather or your uncle increase the mining of gold and silver in the Westerlands to send it to me as coin, it would mean I would have a great deal of gold dragons to spend and for a time that I could easily pay off debts and purchase more splendor."

"So why not do that?"

"Because it would mean that there would be more gold dragons in everyone's hands than there used to be. Soon enough, the gold would be worth less than it had been and I would need more gold dragons to purchase what I used to be able to buy for far fewer. This would mean needing to mint more gold dragons which would only put more gold in the market and make it worth less and less. Doing things our way, with our own coin rather than making new coin is the safest way to keep everything in balance. Do you understand?"

"I think so." she mostly lied.

"Good." he ruffled her hair and then begged Yraemon's pardon.

"My little she-dragon and I must visit with my lady wife.

Her mother, twin sister, and little brother were to be found together listening to a story told by the Red Priestess who had come into their household not long ago. She was a queer woman who told stories of the prince that was promised, of waking stone dragons, and of prophecies. Rhaella didn't know what to think of the strange woman. She seemed nice enough, but her Red God never captured Rhaella's attention like the Seven had. Still, it was nice that her mother had her to speak with.

"Where did you rip your dress?" Her mother pointed near the hem of Rhaella's dress before her father could even say a word.

"I..."

"You were climbing again?! Why were you climbing?! I've told you how terrified I am about your climbing. I'll have your feet weighed down this time, I told you I would and I mean to do it." her mother seemed frantic.

"It was my fault." Her father cut her off. "I went to pick her up and her dress was caught on the painted table. There's like to be a small stretch of fabric still clinging to Dorne."

Rhaella looked up to her father, elated that he had lied for her, but found his face still looking at her mother, with sullen and mournful eyes.

You should have said that sooner." Her mother replied, having regained a degree of her composer.

Her father gave her a stern look before he lifted her up. He was upset with her. His grasp wasn't tighter than it normally was, and his face wasn't any harder than it had been before, but she knew he was upset that he had been made to lie to her mother. With Rhaella in his arms, he took as seat near his wife and Joanna and the Red Priestess bid everyone a farewell for the evening.

Her lady mother spoke of her day with little Jaehaerys and the Red Priestess, which sounded as dull and uneventful as ever. Joanna spoke of sewing lessons and handwriting. She even showed off how well she could write her name now. It looked like a proper signature rather than the chicken scratch that characterized Rhaella's attempts at writing. It was pleasant. Despite Rhaella's desire for excitement, for dragons, and for adventure, the warmness of being with her family was not something she would want to go without.

Dinner followed a similar path, though with Lord and Lady Bar Emmons supping with them. The couple talked about nothing that seemed even remotely interesting to Rhaella, everything was tithes, taxes, and trade, and Rhaella wanted none of it.

After dinner she was tucked into bed in the solar she shared with her sister. Her father told a story to the pair about some knight who loved a fair maiden and rescued her from her cruel father and monstrous betrothed only to be struck down by that wicked man. Though he killed the monstrous man who would dishonor the beautiful maiden, he died of his wounds, promising that he would return when he was needed most.

It hadn't been a story of dragons and warrior queens like Rhaella would have wanted, but it was nice. Sad, but nice. With his story finished, her father kissed her and her twin on their foreheads and bid them good night.

While her sister may have dreamed of the fair maiden and the knight in their father's story, Rhaella dreamt of dragons. They danced beneath a pale sky while fire followed in their wake. So much fire.

 **Author's Note:**

Our story has begun in earnest in the year 297 AC. It was a tough choice not going with Viserys as our POV character on Dragonstone, and some may feel it is the wrong choice, but I feel that viewing the Prince and the actions he makes through the eyes of girl who doesn't fully understand his machinations and is biased in his favor is the right way to go on this.


	8. Shall We Dance: Rhaegar I

**Rhaegar I**

 _The North is vast._

This was a fact Rhaegar had known since he was just a small boy, but his journey northwards with his cousin Robb and Ser Arthur, to visit the Wall and Uncle Benjen, had truly made him appreciate just how vast the land his uncle ruled over was. He had not imagined that it would be a few days ride up the King's Road to Last Hearth. When he was less than half his current age it had taken weeks to travel from Winterfell to far off Barrowton. Granted the caravan had been much larger on that journey, and the carriages had slowed their pace greatly, but the pace Rhaegar and Robb made now was almost certainly slower, despite not being encumbered. Time had been of a great importance on the journey to Barrowton, so Lord Eddard had bypassed many of the holds that would have held feasts for him in their halls if he were to have stayed in them. For this journey, time was not of the essence, and they had supped in every hall that would have them. The Cassels had held them for near a full week. Though their's was a minor house, akin more to the landed knights of the south with House Stark being their direct suzerain, they had lavished the Prince and his cousin greatly and mourned their departure.

"We'll need to find another way back to Winterfell on our return, Rhaegar. I fear that if should return on this path we shan't be allowed to leave for home." Robb had joked.

With the Lakes of Long Lake, they had feasted upon fish and venison for three days before Lord Larence had bid them farewell. During those three days though, the old man had tried his damnedest to bring his eldest daughter and Robb closer together.

The girl was two years older than the boys and her hands were rough from working fishing nets with her father, but her pale blue eyes had a softness to them that, along with her wolfish grin and a bountiful chest, had proven to be very alluring.

Recalling this, and with a fish-eating grin upon his face, Rhaegar turned to his cousin and asked, "What did she ask of you last night?"

An indignant look grew upon Robb's face and he looked half a boy. "I don't know what you mean?"

The prince let out a chuckle before he went on, "I saw you and Annag in the hall. You were very close to one another. Seemed she rather wanted you to see something."

"Aye." was all the response Robb would give him.

"And?"

"She'd said I wouldn't be her first, and I didn't have to be her last if I didn't want to be." Robb sighed, his cheeks all red with embarrassment. "I told her that I meant her no offense, but couldn't take her up on her offer. I wouldn't dishonor her that way." Robb said solemnly. "If something were to come of it…" he trailed off.

"Aye." he reached out and patted his cousin on the shoulder.

The two didn't bring up the niece of their riding partner out of a matter of courtesy, but Brandon Stark's bastard cast a shadow nearly as large as the man's legend.

Wishing to lighten the mood, which he had accidentally created, Rhaegar called out to Ser Arthur, "Could we race, Arthur? We've seen neither hide nor hair of any highwaymen since we left Winterfell. Surely, Robb and I could test our skill without much risk?"

The old knight of the Kingsgaurd shook his head.

"This road isn't the place for racing, Your Grace. It is already falling into disrepair. You're like to damage the road as much as the road is like to trip up your horse. While I care very little for the state of the road, I care a great deal about the prospect of you being thrown off your horse."

"You'll need to send a raven to your brother, Rhaegar! Tell him we need ten thousand dragons to rebuild the Kingsroad in the North." Robb japed.

"I'll do that straight away. I'm sure I'll receive a reply not long afterwards. It'll say, no."

The pair laughed as they continued on their way.

It was wonderful being with Robb out upon the open road. They were brothers, and adventures like those in the stories of old. That Robb was a Stark and Rhaegar a Targaryen, mattered far less to the dragon prince now than it had in the past and didn't matter at all between holds.

"How long you you think we'll have to stay in Last Hearth?" Robb asked him, as their horses trotted along the ever declining in quality Kingsroad.

"Until the Greatjon get's you to agree to marry one of his daughters, or course."

Robb sort of grimaced at that. It wasn't that Bessa Umber was a particularly ugly woman, but the lady of seven and ten certainly had the Umber look. Rhaegar recalled seeing her at a feast. She was a wide lass who no one could ever argue was not up to the task of child birthing, but her nose was broad, her arms thick, and her face homely. Was it a dreadful thing for the pair of them to joke about her when her family would soon be providing them shelter? Certainly, but that didn't stop the boys.

"Bessa's like to accidentally break my legs and force us to stay for a month or more."

Trying to put on his best imitation of Bessa's voice, Robb joked, "Oh, I'm so sorry, My Lord. I didn't mean to drop that log upon you lordly foot. You needn't worry, I'll take good care of you."

"And then she'll pick you up in her arms and cradle you like a babe."

The two had a hearty laugh at that that image, only to be interrupted by Ser Arthur.

"And what aspect of yours do you think the Umber household is making mirth over? Might it be those scraggly patchwork of whiskers the two of you call beards?"

Robb rubbed his chin and Rhaegar felt his mostly naked cheeks.

"We meant no offense, Ser Arthur." Robb offered.

"Aye, but we draw closer to Last Hearth with passing each hour and it would be for the best if no small folk heard you two prattling on like gossipy maidens about their liege lord's daughter."

The two boys shook their heads in agreement, taking their dressing down without protest.

The companions heard the Last River before they saw it. The angry leviathan was fed by snowmelt from from the Northern Mountains to the west and flowed east into the Shivering Sea. Bridging the roaring river was a dilapidated cobblestone bridge. After the crossing, their journey took them off the Kingsroad, riding away from the setting sun towards the coming night.

The were not far from the crossing when seven riders waving the banners of House Umber greeted them.

Even in the twilight, the prince recognized the impressive size of the Smalljon. He appeared to scowl at the three as he approached.

"We've been expecting you lot for bout half a day now. We'd started to worry you'd gotten yourselves lost or been set upon by men of the mountain clans looking to make you beautiful young lads into their wives." He capped that off with a hearty laugh that echoed out into the darkness.

A smile grew on Robb's face and he was quick to retort, "Tis an awful thing to accuse your own father of mismanaging the land so much the mountain clans could do as they see fit. Surely, he'd be hurt be such an accusation."

Another jovial laugh came from the Smalljon and he gave his chest a heavy slap.

"Should'ave know better than to try swapping japes with you, Lord Stark. Southerners are always better in war of words then we are."

"I'm no Southerner, and I'm just a good with a sword as I am with my words. Better even." Robb's reply was a little sharper than Rhaegar thought wise.

"We'll have to test that on the morrow, Lord Stark. It'll give the small folk a great show to see us spare."

"Aye it will."

"But tonight little lords we will spare with liquor not swords. It does my father a great honor to welcome you to Last Hearth. Now let us ride, or a damned shadow cat might meet us in the night and leave us unable to enjoy food and drink."

The remainder of the ride to Last Hearth went by quickly, with Robb and the Smalljon trading japes, while Rhaegar and Ser Arthur were mostly silent. Small croitean grew more common as they approached Last Hearth and the baying of sheep made Rhaegar laugh at the thought that they were greeting his host. When they arrived at Last Hearth, they found it to be less a castle and more a walled town. Instead of a keep, at Last Hearth's heart was a great longhouse sitting atop a hill. Standing at the base of the steps that led up to the impressive hall was the Greatjon and his wife Elona, flanked by their daughters Bessa and little Argella.

The riders dismounted and made their way forward. Rhaegar had expected the Greatjon to kneel like he would to Lord Eddard, but he stayed standing.

"Prince Rhaegar, Lord Robb, took you and your Kingsguard long enough." he said boisterously. "Damn near had to send out a search party to make sure you hadn't been swept off by Wildlings. Would have been an awful thing to have to tell your father."

Robb looked to the Smalljon, "I guess I won't have to tell your father that you don't think he protects his lands properly after all. He seems to think it himself."

The Greatjon's face contorted with anger as he took in the insult.

"What do you know of Wildling raiders, boy! What have you lost to them?" He roared, his mirth turning to wroth.

Ser Arthur looked to tense up as if readying himself for a moonlight melee, while Robb simply shook his head.

"Nothing, Lord Umber. But maybe if you were a head shorter there could be someone more capable of dealing with the Wildlings than either of us sitting in Last Hearth."

The Greatjon scowled at Robb and for a moment, Rhaegar feared that his cousin had chosen to escalate things too far and too fast. Only for the Greatjon to smile.

"You're tough for a southern boy who's not known anything but summer. I'll give yeah that." and with that bit of praise, the Greatjon knelt before the son of his liege lord.

"You may rise, Lord Umber."

"Damn right I'll rise. We've got good food that's just been sittin' in that damn hall for hours now and I mean to let not a scrap of it go to waste."

The giant of a man dipped his head and gave a brusque, "Prince Rhaegar." before he turned to lead the party up the steps.

The hall was loud and crowded. A minstrel, lute in hand, played _The Bear and the Maiden Fair_ , but it was barely audible over the voices of those feasting. The Smalljon and Robb had already taken to putting away ale and Northern Whisky. Drinking them separately wasn't fast enough, so they had taken to dropping their smaller cups of whisky into their mugs of ale and knocking back the combination. The Smalljon had already managed to chip a tooth on the exercise and Robb was bleeding from his lip where a shard from a broken cup cut him, not that he felt it. Rhaegar stayed away from the whisky, a bit of winter cider and a small glass of ale was enough for the young dragon prince. Instead his attention was focused upon the great pork leg on his plate. The meat was tender and melted away from the bone as he bit into it. Days of slow cooking, buried under the earth with coals and heated stones had broken down everything holding the flesh of the animal together. The sweet onions that had been cooked with the boar had absorbed as much flavor from the pig as the pig had from them, making it easy for Rhaegar to take great bites out of them in between attacking the leg in front of him.

"Been awhile since a dragon visited this far North, boy." The Greatjon called out to Rhaegar.

A muffled "Aye" escaped Rhaegar's half filled mouth.

"Twas the she-dragon, Alysanne Targaryen, weren't it? The one that stole Queenscrown and the New Gift from the North. Twas good land and now it lies fallow, unused by the Watch while Queenscrown rots." he shook his head.

Not sure what to say about that, Rhaegar offered something else.

"Prince Jacaerys and the dragon Vermax visited after that. At the Dance's start, dragon and rider flew to Winterfell so as to gain Lord Cregan's support."

Little Argella, a girl who could have been no older than Bran spoke up with that.

"He's right, father! Vermax even laid a clutch of eggs in the crypts."

"Vermax was a male, Argella. He could not have laid any eggs at Winterfell." The Umber's maester said to the girl.

"Boy or girl, it makes no difference what Vermax was or wasn't. But his rider was of House Velaryon, not Targaryen. Though in a way it still falls in line with what happens when a dragon comes North; they take from us. We won the battles but lost the Dance, not when Aegon fed his sister to his dragon, but when the pact was broken. When what was promised us was withheld. The North remember's that slight. Then they took Lord Rickon from us. Sent him to die in Dorne with nothing to show for it, but the troubles that came after Lord Cregan's death. Were that the Kneeler scattered his army of 30,000 to the wind and we emptied out our castles like the smallfolk empty out the wintertowns we could have fought off the the Conqueror, like the Dornish. Maybe there would still be a King-in-the-North."

"But how many would have died if Lord Torrhen hadn't knelt."

The Greatjon shook his head and pounded back another great mug of ale before he went on.

"Somethings are worth laying down our lives for, dragon prince. Brandon Snow knew that, were that he was the trueborn son of Winterfell while his brother was the baseborn bastard we might have lived by those words. The North remembers what it means to be free, little dragon. We will always remember."

"Aye, but do you remember when King Aegon V sent food during the harsh winter of his reign?" Ser Arthur offered, finally roused from his silence.

The Greatjon glared at Ser Arthur, "We remember it all, Dornishman, but we remember the wars and what caused them most."

Rhaegar thought it wise not to challenge the Greatjon on that. He understood what war the Greatjon was referring to.

"Where the North remembers, the South forgets. This dragon is long forgotten by the Southern lords and their Southern king, Lord Umber. Winterfell is my home and it will remain that way until I am married to the daughter of a Northern lord and call their keep home."

The Greatjon grinned at that.

"You hear that, Argella? The dragon wants to find a good Northern wife! You've a fondness for dragons, don't you?!" He laughed.

"Yuck!" The little girl shouted. "I don't want to get married, papa. You can't make me! I'll run off to Bear Island and be a shield maiden!"

With another swig of ale and another great laugh, the Greatjon responded to his daughter.

"You'll do no such thing, little one. You don't have to marry the dragon, but I won't be losing any of my children to Maege Mormont."

The mood, lightened after that, with the Greatjon turning from his aggressive position towards Rhaegar to one that was more of mirth. They talked of the Godswood, the wintertown, and his uncle.

"He's a sense of duty, like no man I've known, taking care of the orphans of both his sibling. Were I him I don't know that I would take Brandon's bastard into my home. Tis a foul thing for a man to give his brother horns."

Rhaegar didn't know what to say, not with Ser Arthur sitting so near.

"She makes it easier," he finally said.

"Good on her. Still, if Brandon had been my brother I can't say I'd have turned kinslayer, but he'd have had very few teeth left in his head after I was done."

Lord Eddard would never do such a thing. He was a good man...Too good of a man.

It was around that time that Rhaegar noticed that Robb had passed out, his face in his plate, food smeared all over it.

"Robb…Robb... Robb!?" He shook his cousin's shoulder.

One of Robb's eyes flew open and he shot up out of his seat and emptied his stomach on the floor, some of it splashing on Rhaegar's leg.

Both the Greatjon and the Smalljon burst into laughter and the Smalljon slammed Robb on the back with his hand.

"Hope you're better with your sword than you are with your drink."

With that the Smalljon went to stand up only to immediately fall on his ass with a great loud thud.

Robb turned to look at the Smalljon and began to laugh. The Smalljon was laughing too, the small chip in his tooth from earlier in the evening clearly visible.

"Think...I think I might've pissed meself," the Smalljon finally said as he tried to pull himself up.

Ser Arthur attempted to help him up, but was only waved off by the Smalljon as he tried to leverage himself back up.

A drunk Robb made his way forward and offered his hand to the Smalljon, who finally relented, and the two worked together to lift up the Smalljon. As the two seemed to be failing, Rhaegar extended his hand and grabbed the Smalljon's right arm while Robb held his left. Together the two were able to lift the Smalljon to his feet.

Smelling of piss, vomit, and spilled ale and whisky, the three could only laugh at the state of themselves. The Smalljon gave the cousins an embrace that almost felt like he was trying break them in two and in doing so, he introduced them to a forth foul smell: the Smalljon's body odor.

"I'll see you two in battle tomorrow, for now, I think I'll be in me bed."

Two attendants came to the Smalljon's aid as he made his way out of the hall, but he pushed them away and they were forced to follow him a few steps behind.

"If you beg us pardon, Lord Umber, I think we'll follow your son's example and turn in for the evening. My cousin, looks like he rather needs the rest."

The Greatjon smiled, "Aye, Your Grace."

And with that Ser Arthur and Rhaegar helped Robb as they were led out of the hall to their rooms for the evening. Robb threw up twice more before they reached their rooms, but when they at last arrived where they would spend the night, Robb quickly fell asleep on his side. Ser Arthur had his own room, leaving Rhaegar alone to listen to Robb's snores. Fiddling with his knapsack, Rhaegar pulled out the queer stone he'd received so many years ago. He didn't know why he'd brought it, it had been a waste of space and extra weight, but he felt like he should.

 _I'll throw it off the Wall._

That'd be something. Maybe a Wildling would find something useful about the white and gold stone, though he very much doubted that. Laying in bed, he held the stone high above himself; he was barely able to make it out in the inky darkness, but he stared up at it nonetheless. He held it up for a long minute gazing at its outline while questions flashed in and out of his thoughts.

 _How were you made?_

 _Why did someone make something like you?_

 _Where are you from?_

 _Why do I care?_

With exhaustion from a long day's ride finally taking it's toll upon him, the dragon prince welcomed sleep's comforting embrace. He put the stone away and began to drift into the places only dreams could take him. While he slept, he dreamt he was flying. There was something different about this dream though, for he was not looking forward or into the sky as he soared higher and higher into the clouds Instead, he dreamt he was looking down on the world as it passed below him. His gaze was upon fields of fire that seemed to go on forever. Men, castles, and animals all burned in the blazes that consumed all the land. Even the rivers seemed to be on fire, steam rising up from them like billowing smoke. But the burning fields that had originally looked to stretch as far as the eye could see eventually came to an end as they gave way to drifts of snow and dead men. Rhaegar seemed so far removed from the burning men and the ghostly frozen souls, but they all took notice of him and the great and terrible shadow he cast upon the land.


	9. Shall We Dance: Asha I

Asha I

The journey from the mainland to Pyke had been a rocky one. A summer storm had caused the greenlander ship to bob about while its crew struggled to keep the vessel from being swallowed up by the sea. While her husband had been sick most of the voyage, throwing up a half dozen times, she had been made proud by her little boy. Dagon was just four, but his sea legs were already the match of any greenlander.

 _He'll make a fine Lord of the Rivers and Isles._

The babe in her belly found himself restless and kicked about throughout much of the journey. The sickness that comes with being an expectant mother had emptied her stomach twice on the rough venture, but she would weather it all again for Pyke. Though Edmure had been reluctant to depart from his duties at Riverrun, given the sickness that had taken hold in his father, he had made the choice to go with her as she returned to her home. She thanked him for that, which felt odd, because less than a half dozen years prior she would have hated being marched back to Pyke like a dog on a leash.

For the first time in a long time, she wore her colors, not those of House Tully. She wouldn't return to Pyke looking like a river trout, she would go home as a kraken. Originally, she had intended to step onto Pyke in mail and pants, a kraken hanging from her neck, but there were something that she was willing to surrender to Edmure. Instead she wore a dress of black and grey with yellow and gold trimmings, though it was covered by the heavy greatcoat she wore to protect against the storm.

There was no great procession waiting for her return to the Iron Islands at the dock, only a few old reavers turned fisherman, refusing to yield to the Storm God while most others hid in their decrepit hovels. As Asha, Dagon, and Edmure left the ship, their party of attendants followed while the household knights sent by Lord Hoster led the way. An old man, drenched to the bone and yet still covered in grime, looked queerly upon Asha.

"What're you trouts doing on our island? Come to make Lord Rodrik kiss your babe?" He croaked.

"Naw, she's a fine lass come to try and get him to fuck her so that's er babe might not look like a fookin' trout," the other coughed.

Edmure reached for his sword, as a rash man defending his wife's honor would, but before he could act, the man nearest to Asha was clutching at his throat having been punched in the adam's apple. The retinue of Tully men drew their blades, but Asha raised her hand to steady them.

"I'll not have you slaughterin' my subjects when the quarrel doesn't involve you."

"Asha." The inflection in Edmure's voice made it clear he wanted vengeance. He was a man full grown, she knew that rather intimately, but in so many ways he was still a boy. He wanted to show that he was a man, that he could take command like his father, but looking like a man a man that had come to occupy the Pyke was a damned good way to get them gutted in the night.

"Asha?" The still standing man responded.

"Lord Balon's daughter?"

"Aye, you raggedy old man."

"But then, Lord Rodrik…," he sort of droned off when he realized what her return to the island meant.

"He's not long for this world, if the little grey remora has it right."

By this point the man who had fallen to the ground after the punch to the throat was scrounging around for a fish scaling knife that must have been knocked to the ground in his fall, only for Asha to step forward and rest her foot on the back of his hand.

"Aaaggghh." The old man croaked.

"Stay down, Goren." The other man hissed.

"I ain't gonna stay down for no greenlander whore. I fought in the rebellion. Lost all me son whiles I rotted in a Lannister prison camp. I ain't gonna turn tail from dis," he cried as he tried to pull his hand out from under Asha's thick wooden soled shoe, only to find Edmure's sword in his face.

"I'll gladly reunite you with your children."

By this point others had started to emerge from the hovels and shacks to see the commotion upon the docks.

"You'd like that wouldn't you?" Asha asked.

The man said nothing, he simply glared up at the pair while the rain fell upon his face. Asha turned back to Dagon, who was being held by one of her ladies-in-waiting, the Wayn girl who arrived in Riverrun just a year earlier. Then she looked back to the old man.

"You want to die old man. You crave it, that's why you're going on that shitty little boat of yours in the middle of this fuckin storm. That's why you wanted to pick a fight. Isn't it? I'll give you that death then. I won't skewer you like I should, but I want to see you get in that little dinghy and row out into storm."

The old man nodded slowly.

"Mayhaps you'll make a strong oarsman for the Drowned God," she added.

That's too bad, cause I'm gonna do something so much worse."

"Ser Vance,take that knife and make sure this man gets onto his boat. If he tries anything, I want him split in half."

"Aye, My Lady."

Edmure looked grim, as though he'd wanted a different outcome, an outcome that might of seen the man hung or speared through on his sword.. The smallfolk looked confused and wary of the new arrivals, but there were no further disruptions and the host made its way to Pyke's ancient stronghold.

Within the walls of the decrepit fortress, the new arrivals were greeted by Asha's lady mother and Rodrik's frail Frey wife. Her mother had been driven half mad by the loss of all but one of her sons, the death of her husband, and it looked as though time had not been well to her in the years since Asha had been shipped off to Riverrun. Still her mother smiled.

"Where've you been dear, you poor brother's taken ill. He'll want to see you. Maron should be home any time now with your father, though your brother seems to think they won't be coming. They must've had a bit of a row, but brothers are still brothers and Maron will show. I'm sure of it," her sing-song voice reminded the Asha that though she was a woman grown, she loved and missed the mother she remembered from her youth.

 _What have you become, mother?_

Lady Alannys Greyjoy looked down from Asha to Dagon and her eyes swelled with tears.

"My boy," she said abruptly.

"My booooy!" she wailed out as she lurched forward and held Dagon's face in her hands and drew Asha's squirming and frightened son closer to her. Despite the boy's protests, she cried and kissed his cheeks and his forehead and tried to smother him in her love and affection.

"My Theon! My Theon! Oh my sweet sweet baby boy! You've come home to me! You've come home!"

Her shrill wails were half of joy and half of pain, and for the first time in a long time, Asha knew not what to do. She looked to Edmure who was himself taken aback by the revelation that his mother by marriage was in fact quite mad, but judging by his expression he also saw the pain in the woman. He wouldn't say anything to interfere with Lady Alannys, it would be in Asha's hands to deal with the sobbing woman before her.

"I'll never let them take you from me again, Theon. Never!"

"Mother."

"Oh my sweet little thing, you've c-c-come back to me."

"Mother," Asha tried again, to no avail.

"Your father will be so happy to see you."

"Mother," Asha's voice wasn't raised or angry, but this third time she placed a hand upon the old woman's shoulder.

"Yes, dear?"

Her mother looked up at her, eyes reddened by her sobbing. She was happy.

 _What right do I have to take this away from her?_

So much of her wanted to give her mother this. Just this little thing, but she couldn't. They would be living together soon and she needed to understand who Dagon was and what he was to her.

"Mother, that isn't Theon."

"What do you mean? How can you say such a thing about your own brother? Of course he's Theon. He's the spitting image of your father when he was just a little lad," her voice was almost pleading, as if she were desperate for this to be the son cleaved in two by the Mountain.

"Mother, Theon died in the war," she spoke softly as she tried to comfort the woman.

"Oh," was all she seemed to be able muster. Her expression was largely blank and the tears of joy that had come with her discovery of little Dagon had not turned into tears of pain or sadness.

"Mother, that's my son, Dagon."

"Dagon?"

"Yes, mother."

"I have a grandbaby?"

Turning away from Asha and back to Dagon and repeated to herself.

"I have a grandbaby."

Little Dagon simply groaned.

"You'll have two soon, mother."

Lady Alannys' gaze darted back to her daughter, and she took in the sight of her extended belly.

"You're with child?"

Asha nodded, yes, and then found her mother embracing her belly bump and kissing it.

"Hello sweetling, I'm so excited to meet you. So excited."

"Mother…" before she could go on, she found her mother kissing her on the cheek and holding her tight.

"My baby girl's bringing me grandbabies." she sobbed.

"My baby girl is bringing me grandbabies," her voiced cracked and as she repeated herself

Asha held her mother, embracing her for the first time since they'd taken her from Pyke.

"You're soaking wet." Her mother was aghast. "We can't have you walking around in that state. Think of the chill…" She cut herself off as she finally took notice of Edmure who had remained silent awkwardly watching the reunion between mother and daughter.

"Who are you?"

Ed extended his hand, "I'm Edmure Tully. It's an honor to meet you, goodmother."

"Good Mother?" Her face contorted in confusion.

"Yes, your daughter is my wife."

"You're married?" she seemed shocked by this revelation.

"Of, course I am mother. I have a son and am expecting a second babe in weeks."

"Yes, but you don't need to be married to be with child."

"Mother."

"My daughter was married and I wasn't at the wedding. Was your father there, at least?"

Asha shook her head in frustration.

"You were talking about a change of clothes?" She hoped to end this line of conversation a quickly as possible.

"Oh, yes. We mustn't let you catch a chill while with babe."

After they were all changed and the attendants and guards from Riverrun were allowed to settle in, Asha left her son and husband to see her her brother. Standing outside his door was the dower Frey girl that Rodrik had been forced to wed. She looked ill herself. As one might expect a flower or bush too look if it given seawater rather water from a stream or well.

"Is he awake?" Asha asked.

"Yes, the pain's too much for him and the milk of the poppy isn't helping. But… um, you might not want to see him. He might get cross."

"Let him be."

"I mean to speak with my brother alone. If anyone tries to enter, tell them I'll have them thrown from the Great Keep."

The girl meekly nodded.

The door hinges creaked loudly as Asha entered into her brother's room. Immediately her sense of smell was assaulted by scent of festering flesh, vomit, and other excrement.

"Shoo's zaw fugs dere?" came a heavy voice from the bed. "Dat you Tyta? Shwear I'll fuggin beld you," he shouted through labored breaths.

"It's not your Frey girl, Rodrik."

"Shom udder wench den. Don madder, lease me be."

She stepped forward until she was at Rodrik's bedside.

"I can't do that, brother."

The stench of him was all the more powerful when she was near him and he looked like a different man that the one she had known from before the war. His hair was long and thin, greyed far before its time, scabs and open sores covered his face. His muscles had all but completely faded away and now the flesh clung to his bones. He was gaunt and ghoulish in appearance, and the smell of him made her think of death.

He sluggishly looked up at her with his sunken eyes.

"Fat." he made a clicking sound with his tongue when the "t" rolled out of his mouth.

"You's godden fat, sinz laz time," he slurred.

"One of us had to."

"Huhh," he strained himself with a chuckle.

"They say you're dying, Rodrik. That you wouldn't let the maester care for a cut you got on your thigh and that it's festered and turned 're rotting. Bein' poisoned by your own blood."

Her brother closed his eyes and nodded his head slowly.

"Shoulda… died… in… der.. war," he weezed between every breath. "Woulda… bin bedda… den…," he took in a heavy breath and exhaled the word, "disss."

"Aye." was all she could say.

Rodrik began to cough violently. He hacked and hacked, but couldn't cough up whatever was plaguing him.

"Dey won't… gif… me… more milk… zay id'll kill me. I… zay… let it."

"I'll speak with the maester. I'll make him understand."

Rodrik smiled ever so slightly, before he turned to hacking again. With that, Lady Asha left her brother be.

Though the maester had protested, she'd ordered him to give her brother what he needed to make the pain stop, and by the day's end Lord Rodrik Greyjoy was dead.

Her mother had howled with grief when the last of her son's have been taken from her. She'd clung to her son and pleaded desperately with the Drowned God to give her back her boy, at least until Lord Balon and Maron could come home to say their goodbyes. It had taken several men, to separate her mother from Rodrik's body so that the the drowned men could do what needed to be done for his funeral on the morrow. After they'd taken her mother away from Rodrik, Asha had instructed Dagon to care for his grandmother. The little lad hadn't wanted to, but there was nothing he could do about the matter. Lady Alannys cradled her grandson for most of the night, before her exertions eventually led to her being taken by sleep.

While her mother mourned and her brother's body was being attended to, she went to her brother's study to see if there was anything that could help her in the days to come. As she rifled through papers that looked like they had been undisturbed in years she heard a knock at the open door. Standing in the door frame was large figure.

"Lady Tully." The gruff voiced man greeted her with a slight dip of his head.

"Yes, who comes calling upon me in the hours after the death of my brother?"

"Urek Ironmaker. I've been sent by my father to discuss with you the governing of Pyke."

 _He means to make me leave._

"My father has been ruling for a long while now. Your brother's been in now shape to command anything in years. He wants you to know that given his experience he would be the best choice as castellan when you leave for Riverrun."

Asha remembered Erik Ironmaker. The fat old man claimed to have sailed with Dagon Greyjoy, now he meant to steal the Islands and her Lady Paramountship from her.

"I'm not going back to Riverrun," she was curt.

"But your husband…," he started only to be cut off.

"Will remain with me. Should events force us to temporarily return to Riverrun, I will gladly consider employing your father's services while I am away. As you say, Lord Erik has experience so he should make a fine castellan."

"I'll tell my father about your intentions on staying, Lady Tully," he said as if dismissing himself.

This man wasn't a smart man, his father might be, but his slights while small were too easily noticed to come from someone adept at playing the game. He was a blunt instrument that his father was like to use against her.

"One moment, Urek."

The large man halted his departure and turned back around to face her.

"Are you married?"

He eyed her for a moment, there was an uncertainty on his face that was all too easy to read.

"I've a Summer Islander for a Salt Wife, but I'm not married like you are to Lord Trout."

"Tully," she responded sharply, "Lord Tully."

"Aye, Lord Tully."

"Send your Summer Islander away, or drown her, or give her to me, I don't give a fuck which, but she needs to be gone from your household."

"What?" He questioned as stepped towards her.

"I'm mean to marry you to one of Ser Quincy Cox's daughters. He's like to complain, but he's a landed knight. He won't pass up an opportunity to marry his daughter to a proper lord."

"I might rape one of these Cox girls, but no one's gonna force me to marry one."

He was now within arm's reach of Asha.

"You will marry one, or I'll chain you to the top of one of the keeps and let the Storm God take you."

"Listen, here bitch…," he leaned forward, his hand outstretched as if to grab her by the throat, but found a blade at his groin.

"Suddenly less talkative now?" she laughed.

"You've been calling me Lady Tully or bitch, or really anything but what you are supposed to call me since the moment you first spoke to me. Now I want to know that you can say _My Lady_."

He grunted and Asha pressed her blade more firmly against the man.

"Say it."

"Yes, My Lady."

"Good, now I'm gonna forget you threatened me and I'm gonna forget your other treasons, and you are going to get rid of the Summer Islander and agree to marry the Cox girl."

"I could agree and then walk out and tell my father to revolt against you. I'm sure many of the other lords would follow him."

"I'd crush you rebellion, your father knows that or else he wouldn't have tried to be diplomatic about this. _We Do Not Sow_ are my words, but they're the way of the Ironborn all the same. If your father thought he could win he'd of done away with my brother and proclaimed himself Lord Reaper. He knows he can't beat the greenlanders, not with Harlaw in greenlander hands."

"You talk like you're not one of them."

"Because I'm not one of them. I'm going to eat all those fish and drown that fucking lion. Not all at once, but I'll do it all the same. One day, the few that remain will wake up and realize that the kraken has been making a meal of them, but they won't be able to do a thing about it as they'll already be held tightly in its arms."

"So are you going to marry the Cox girl, Lord Urek?"

There was a long pause, but Urek eventually agreed, "Yes, My Lady."

"Good, now get out and tell your father I want to see everything accumulated while he did my brother's job."

After her conversation with Lord Urek, Asha checked in upon her sleeping mother and little Dagon before going to her chambers to find her husband.

Edmure was pacing about, a bit like a caged animal.

"Ed, could you help me undress?" She thought that a more tactful way to get him to stop pacing than simply commanding him to stop.

"Course, love."

He fumbled about with the ridiculous ties and laces that held the dress tightly around her form. He'd always had trouble with them. When they were younger and he a bit more rash, he'd ruin her dresses by tearing them off and she'd do something like smack him, and then they'd laugh together and love one another.

"I worry about this place, Asha."

"Quite right to, Ed," she said trying to be honest without telling him about Urek so as to avoid him trying to challenge the man to a duel.

"I worry about father too."

"Aye, he's a strong trout though. I'm sure that he'll be well soon enough."

"I worry about Dagon and the baby growing up in a place like this. My sister Cat has sons, Robb, Bran, Rickon, and she's never had harsh words for her husband in the letters she'd send father. Mayhaps, we could send Dagon to Winterfell to foster there."

Asha turned around slowly, her unfastened dress falling down around her chest, and she looked at Edmure.

"Ed, I love you. I think you can be painfully thick at time, but that adds to your charm; but I won't hear another word about you stealing my baby boy away from me and sending him to some frozen castle in the North. You understand?"

"I'm sorry, I know how you must feel after seeing your mother like that, it's just I'm worried."

"I know you are Ed, but this place is my home, and Dagon is safest here with us."

Edmure's look of worry didn't vanish with her reassurances, but his face softened some.

"I love you."

"And I you."


	10. Shall We Dance: Jon I

**Jon I**

No winter at Griffin's Roost had ever been quite as cold as summer north of the Wall. Even after so many years, Jon Connington had not grown accustomed to the fierce cold he experienced while ranging in the lands the Wildlings called home.

"Why are we riding so fucking fast, Connington?" Cried out a young man by the name of Martin who was new to ranging. Before his arrival Martin had been a farm hand in the Riverlands who'd fallen for a farmer's daughter. The young man claimed he and the girl were lovers, but the farmer had said that he was a raper, who'd beaten the girl bloody and had his way with her. Jon didn't know Martin well, he didn't really care to either, but he expected that the farmer's story was more true than Martin's was.

"It's _Lord_ Connington, you fuckin' raper," Ser Roland Flowers responded.

"Who de fuck really cares? It's fuckin' freezin. I wanna slow down," Martin whinned.

"We'll be at Castle Black sooner this way, boy!" Jon gruffly shouted through the rags that covered his face.

The former Lord of Griffin's Roost had hoped that he would be back at the castle by midday, but they had been held up at Craster's Keep. Martin had let slipped information pertaining to the visitors that the castle would soon be hosting, and the disgusting old man had wanted to know more about the prince and the Stark boy. He'd wanted to know if they would be coming ranging, but Jon had dissuaded him of the idea that such an event was happening. It was more than likely that the swill of a man would tell Mance Rayder about the boys if they were to be taken ranging by the Watch. That would certainly give the oathbreaker something to think about. He'd likely send a great host to try and take the boys captive. The heirs to the Iron Throne and Winterfell would make powerful bargaining pieces for the man who styled himself King-Beyond-the-Wall. The Old Bear would never allow the boys to do such a thing, Jon would never let them do such a thing either. He'd protect Little Rhaegar the way he never could protect his father.

As they raced through the snow, the trees began to vanish and the base of the Wall came into view.

Before the High Lords Rebellion, before the Dance, before the Conquest, and even before the Andals made Westeros their home, the Wall and the Night's Watch had stood as sentinels against against the White Walkers, the snow spiders, the giants, and any number of other beasts that terrorized the nightmares of men. Princes had given up kinghood to join the Watch, the second sons of houses great and small had joined the ancient and honored order, and kings bestowed upon the order great gifts. Perhaps no greater gift was given to the order than the lands of the _New Gift_ turned over by good King Jaehaerys I. Yet, that was the Watch of old. An organization filled with men of honor and great standing; an order that enjoyed the support of a continent, but those days were done. Now it's ranks were filled with rebels, rapers, and murderers. Few men of the Night's Watch were men of honor and high birth and few of those were at the Wall because they wanted to be. Lord Jon Connington was among those men. He was not a man of Watch by his own choice, but because he had been sent to the Wall upon his return to Westeros at the end of the High Lords Rebellion. The men he had fought against and the men he had fought with would not suffer his return to the Stormlands or King's Landing. He had been presented with a choice that was not truly a choice at all. He could take the black or he could return to his exile in Essos.

He had chosen to take the black.

He could have returned to Essos and joined a sellsword company, maybe even made something of a life by taking the lives of others in the disputed lands. Yet, he had chosen to forgo the prospect of wealth and a sort of freedom for closeness to a fragment of his prince. He had failed Rhaegar the Elder when he had not captured the wounded rebel, Robert Baratheon, at Battle of the Bells. Because of his failure, Baratheon had caved in his prince's chest when he'd delivered a killing blow with his own sword. But, even after his failure, the Seven had seen fit to give Jon another chance. The woman that Rhaegar needed, she'd given him a son. The stupid girl had caused so much harm and caused the prince's fall, but she had born him a son, a second Rhaegar. A prince that Jon had been given the opportunity to know and watch grow. Unlike Ser Arthur Dayne, he had not been allowed to stay by his prince's side, but it was more than anything he could have hoped for in Essos. Rhaegar the Younger was a sweet boy, soft spoken and quiet like his father had been, but in a different sort of way. Though Jon was sure that the little prince had more of his father in him than of that wild woman who had stolen the elder Rhaegar, there was no denying that the prince's son had her look. Every visit, the son looked less like the father and more and more like his rebel uncle, Lord Eddard Stark. It pained Jon to see the boy prince adopt more and more of the Northern stylings, when he should have been so much more than that.

 _I wish I could send him away_. Jon would think at times, but he knew that selfishly he wanted his little prince close. He wanted to be able to see little Rhaegar. He wanted to know him and help him like he could never do if the little prince were to be sent off the King's Landing with his brother, or High Garden with his sister. No, for all the faults that came with the prince living with the woman's family, the fact that he could see the boy and try and remind him of who he truly is was more important.

He thought of the prince, often when he was ranging, and worried about him. Yet his thoughts of him had grown increasingly more common since learning that the prince would soon be arriving at Castle Black. Though he had worried that the boy was meaning to act on the notion he had once mentioned in passing of joining the Night's Watch, the presence of his cousin alleviated his concerns. _The boy isn't meant to be a winter rose hidden away in a chamber of ice._ Jon knew this as he knew his own name.

The gates opened and Jon and his men were allowed to pass through the ice tunnel. As they emerged from the other side they were greeted by the Old Bear.

"Lord Commander," Jon bowed his head to the old warrior.

"Jon, I've to speak with you."

"Yes, Lord Commander," Jon dismounted his horse and handed the reins to Ser Roland, asking him to take the animal to the stable.

Jon and the Old Bear walked in step with one another.

"Prince Rhaegar and Lord Eddard's son are here. With their uncle at Eastwatch, I need you."

"What do you need, Lord Commander?"

"I'm sure that Lord Eddard understands our problem and is doing his best to aid our cause, but it's not enough. You are close with the boys, if you could get Prince Rhaegar to write a letter to his brother, the king, maybe it'll gain enough notice for the king to send proper men to our cause."

"I will do what I can, Lord Commander," Jon knew that the prince would write the letter, with little prompting. He'd probably write the letter after he looked at the state of Castle Black with no prompting at all. Though what good that would do with Lord Tywin Lannister as the power behind the throne was an uncertainty.

Jon made his way to where the Prince was being housed and knocked.

The door opened and the stocky Stark pup smiled at him.

"Lord Jon," the boy hugged Jon. "At least we get to see one of the people we came all this way for

"Bad timing, is all lad. Your Uncle wanted to be here, I'm sure of that."

 _Robb is a warrior, or he will be when he grows up. Maybe the boy would help inspire Rhaegar with his bravado._ The Stark boy may have been the son of a rebel and been blood of that woman, but Jon was glad Rhaegar had him.

"Where's your cousin?"

Robb sort of chuckled. "Gone to see Maester Aemon. He couldn't leave the poor old man alone until morning."

"And Arthur?"

"Supping with some of the men of the Watch. Rhaegar wanted to be alone with Aemon, I think. So Arthur begrudgingly let him."

The two talked more, speaking of Winterfell, of the boys siblings, and of Robb's desire to travel more. After the two shared a few laughs, Jon went off to find Rhaegar. Aemon's steward told him that the prince had already left, but that he had spoken of looking out from the top of the Wall.

The winch elevator creaked and groaned as it raised raised Jon to the structure's summit. After he had made it to the top, Jon followed the the ramparts for a bit before he saw the what looked to be the prince about to throw some sort of stone off of the Wall.

"Prince Rhaegar?"

The boy jumped a little, presumably out of fright, and fumbled to put the large stone back into a knapsack.

"Lord Jon?"

Jon received his first good look at Rhaegar in nearly a year. He was growing handsome in his own way, a way that was very unlike his father. His face was getting long, losing it's childish roundness. His eyes, illuminated by the full moon, were such a dark shade of grey that they appeared almost black.

 _His father had had dark eyes, as well. Though his were like deep purple pools._

"Aye, Your Grace," Jon bowed.

Rhaegar shook his head, "Jon you don't need to do that."

"I want to, Prince Rhaegar."

Rhaegar sighed slightly and looked out upon the untamed lands beyond the Wall.

"Robb wants to keep going."

"Aye, he told me about how he wants to keep traveling."

"Not just traveling. He wants to go North of the Wall. He's got all these ideas about us. On our second night at Last Hearth, he talked about slipping away from Ser Arthur and becoming hedge knights."

Rhaegar let out an uncomfortable chuckle at his own words.

Robb's ideas worried Jon, but the overall idea behind them was something Jon felt he understood. "I'd council against venturing beyond the Wall, but making a name for yourselves is something commendable. You're an excellent swordsman for someone of your age, and Robb is a rider of excellent prowess and wields the lance well. Going from tourney to tourney for a year may be a good way to win the adoration of the people."

Rhaegar shook his head again, "I don't want to win their adoration, Jon. I've all I want at Winterfell."

"But you could have so much more. You should have so much more."

"I've a good home, and a family that loves me, Jon. Why complicate things? Why give Lady Catelyn any more reasons to believe I put put her son in danger?"

"I know what they call my father, Rhaegar the Unworthy, or Rhaegar the Raper…"

"Lies!" Jon shouted. "Lies, every last one of them. No one was more worthy than your father. He would have made a great king. The greatest, in fact," the anger of his words had an almost frantic tone to them.

"Maybe, Jon, but rumor spreads almost as fast as ravens fly and I know they speak of me like as if I were a new Blackfyre. Uncle Eddard forbids talk of it, but I know that there are those in the South who call me a bastard because my parent's vows were said before a heart tree and not a septon."

"Scum, the whole lot of them."

"They aren't scum, Jon. They're people who suffered because of me, and because of my father."

"No, they suffered because they were too small to understand your father."

Again the prince shook his head and mournfully gazed out at the great wilderness. Jon wanted for nothing more than to comfort the boy, but he didn't know how. Everything he said seemed to be the wrong thing.

"I don't want to make people suffer, Jon. I don't want to be the second coming of Daemon Blackfyre or the Half-Year Queen. I want peace and to live with the family that I love, but maybe it would be better if I came here like Aemon did all those years ago."

Jon placed his hand on the prince's shoulder, "This place isn't for you, Rhaegar."

"Mayhaps, Jon. Mayhaps."


	11. Shall We Dance: Davos I

**Davos I**

King's Landing was a place of uncertainties. Uncertain alliances, uncertain bedfellows, uncertain safety, and so much more. Yet, there were still things which Lord Davos Seaworth could be relatively certain about. One of those things was Ser Wendel Manderly's seemingly endless appetite. Since his arrival in King's Landing as the Representative of the Stormlands on the Council of Lords, Davos had taken to spending time with the fat knight of White Harbor.

Along with his friendship with Wendel was his unfortunate relationship with Petyr Baelish.

For years now, the man sought to ingratiate himself with every member of the Small Council and the Council of Lords, and that had meant, that the man had attempted to make himself needed by everyone, including Davos. He would discuss smuggling ventures that he'd known of in Gulltown and attempt to draw some kind of parallel between the two men's rise to prominence and the disdain it earned them from lords of older families. He was as slimy as an eel and Davos thought him a great deal more dangerous. Most didn't see it. To them Littlefinger was a man who'd risen above his standing because he was good with sums and money, and kissed the boot of whoever so desired it of him. He was a pet that they could use and abuse, but who would always come back to praise and serve them because they believed that he needed them more than they needed him.

Yet, to Davos, Baelish was so much more dangerous. He was a conman, and an excellent one at that. Davos had known such men in his past life. He had seen them lay smugglers low so that they could bring themselves high; false friends who were quicker to turn than any sellsword save maybe the Second Sons. That one had made it this far into the upper echelons of the government didn't seem impossible, but that so few understood the danger the "meek" Lord Baelish posed to them was astonishing. Yet, it was with this man that Davos walked with towards the luncheon with Wendel Manderly.

"It will certainly be interesting if Lord Tywin chooses to leave King's Landing for Casterly Rock to see his Ser Jaime's infant son," Baelish attempted to gather something of Davos' view on the matter.

"Aye."

"He hasn't left the boy-king's side since the creation of the Council, and from what I've gathered he rarely left the boy's side before then."

"He does keep the boy under close watch." Davos chose to guard his tongue. The walls had eyes and ears, and he had every reason to avoid making Lord Stannis look like a fool for placing his trust in him. Still, the matter of Tywin's closeness to the boy was well worth noting. It was rare that the boy was out in public, and rarer still was his presence without the Hand. Though Tywin was just one man on the regency council, he held the strongest position and the most cloat. He was the boy-king's shadow, the true ruler of Westeros, and nearly everyone understood that.

Though Davos still thought of the Aegon VI as a boy, he was nearly a man, but the forgetful little king who still spoke with the stutter he had greeted Davos with rarely attended council meetings. The last time the boy had, he'd been fairly quiet, except when it came to matters of coin when Lord Renly had been prattling off some figures and the boy quickly cut off Renly to state the sum. His own thoughts on the boy-king and Lord Tywin aside, Davos was keen on keeping silent on the matter.

The two found Ser Wendel on the terrace outside of his room, sitting at the head of a beautiful mahogany table. A beautiful display of food covered nearly the entire thing. The fat knight of White Harbor was already eating a bowl of Volantene Patsas; a large chunk of white tripe rested in the man's spoon as he blew on it to cool it down before taking it into his mouth.

When Wendel saw his servant with Davos and Baelish in tow, he smiled widely.

"You're late, you two," he said with a great laugh.

"We're alway late, Ser Wendel. Though, I'm beginning to think that mayhaps it's you who is early."

The White Harborman grinned and wagged his now empty spoon at Davos, "You can never be too early for a meal. Now sit, my friends."

With that Davos and Baelish took their seats and began to partake in Ser Wendel's bountiful table. As Davos began to crack open a steamed clam, Ser Wendel bit into a slightly over ripened blood orange which spurted him in the eye. He rubbed at it as he groaned and hissed about the stinging caused by the fruit's juices.

"Seven Hells it stings."

"Wasn't anticipating an assault in the middle of eating, where you?" Davos quipped.

"Indeed. Is it too much to ask for a blood orange to respect Guest's Rights?" He waved off the serving girl who had come with a towel to aid him.

Baelish chuckled over his plate of grilled octopus in vinegar, oil and oregano. "I see Volantene cuisine is the theme of the luncheon," he observed.

Eye still red from the attack by the orange, Ser Wendel smiled.

"Quite right, Petyr. Davos, you should try the fried smelts." He reached forward with a large arm and speared several of the crisp fish with a fork. "They are simply delectable."

"I'll take you up on that offer."

As the three dined on an assortment of Volantene dishes, they made small talk on their days. Wendel spoke of a letter from his father and Davos was pleased to discuss letters from his wife on their youngest son. His last visit home had lasted less than a fortnight, but nine months later he had an eighth son waiting for him at home. With his wife's age he had worried that an eighth child so late in life might have placed too much strain on her, but she and little Argilac had emerged through the pregnancy in good order. It would be some time before he would get another opportunity to visit the keep Lord Stannis had given him and see the son he had never met.

"It is quite good my father sent myself rather than my brother in his stead. Keeping Wylis from his family would have been a dreadful thing. I imagine it must be very difficult on you to be away from your boys."

"Why not bring your family to King's Landing, Lord Davos?" Baelish interjected. "Surely, the city is a more vibrant place for your family than your keep in Cape Wrath?"

"My eldest may come to visit me in the days to come, but my wife and my youngest three are better off in a place of consistency rather than vibrance."

Baelish nodded and smiled. "And Ser Wendel, you speak of your brother's family with fondness, have you thought of one for yourself?"

The fat merman shook his head, no. "Though Lord Stevron Frey attempted to broach the subject of a marriage to one of his kin in the past, I think it best I remain a bachelor."

"You remain a bachelor, as well, Lord Petyr. Surely one of the Lords of the Vale has offered you a daughter? Names and titles mean a great deal, but a sack of silver can charm most."

"Like yourself, I, too, feel that it is not time to marry just yet."

It was when the conversation turned to Baelish that it became less about family and personal matters and more about matters of state.

"Lord Davos, what are your thoughts on Mace Tyrell's push to expand the Council of Lords?"

"You'll have to forgive me, but I've heard nothing of this?" Davos cautiously responded.

"Really? Given Lord Renly's closeness to the Reachmen, I'd have thought he would have informed you and his brother on this matter."

"What matter? I'm quite unfamiliar with what you two are speaking about?" Wendel injected.

Baelish turned, and with a smile on his face, was all too happy to relate his story.

"One of Lord Mathis Rowan's men allowed it to slip out to a mutual acquaintance that Lord Mace seems to feel that the Reach is rather underrepresented on the Council, given its size."

Davos was certain that this mutual acquaintance was likely to be a whore. It seemed that half the whores of King's Landing had come to be on Baelish's payroll in the few short years since his arrival.  
"Ha! The North is nearly the size of the other six kingdoms combined. Yet, I've never received a letter from Lord Eddard complaining of our representation."

Baelish smirked slightly. His thin smile masking any thoughts Wendel's statement might have elicited. "Still, Lord Mace has begun to crow about the matter. He thinks it unjust that the Reach has as much representation as the Iron Islands."

Ser Wendel looked indignant as he shook his head upon hearing this. "The Lord of Highgarden fought on the side that was against those that would form the Council. He should consider himself lucky that he has any representation at all."

Baelish cracked open a spiced mudbug and sucked out its tender guts before he responded.

"He did, which is likely why he means to place more of his bannermen on the council. Lord Mace needed a decisive victory to ingratiate himself to the Mad King to strengthen his position. But he lost and he's a few sons and daughters too short to trade for allegiance from the older houses of the Reach. A few of which already grow restless."

 _And how would you have come to know of the restlessness of lords in the Reach?_ Davos wondered.

"Placing a Tarly and a Florent on the Council of Lords will go a long way to curry favor with the families he hasn't been able to marry."

"The up jumped petty stewards are trying to sell seats on the council for loyalty again," Ser Wendel followed that with a hearty laugh. "Surely, Lord Mace doesn't think he will garner the support needed for such a venture. Who would vote to weaken themselves and their lands and strengthen him?"

Littlefinger stroked his goatee as if to feign that he was deep in thought before he answered, "No one, though there are voices expressing interest in expanding the ranks of the Council. My own Liege Lord, is tempted by the idea of expanding it to two or three councilers per region."

 _Would Lord Arryn be supportive of Baelish's dispensation of that information so freely?_ Davos thought it unlikely.

"Lord Arryn thinks it would be good to place an older family on the council to balance out my place here. I'm sure that Lord Stannis would feel similarly. Am I correct Lord Davos?"

"I'm not sure—I'd need to consult him on the matter." In truth Davos knew that while it would be politically expedient for Lord Stannis to agree with the expansion of the council to place a second Stormlander, of far older blood, on the council, it was unlikely that his Liege Lord would be tremendously influenced by that chain of logic. Stannis was a hard man and he'd not softened himself in his time as Lord of the Stormlands. He'd relented on his crusade of putting an end to prostitution in the Stormlands, but he had fought hard to try and enforce his decision for nearly six years and even today there were no brothels near Storm's End.

"Lord Eddard is like not to mind the addition of a seat. Lord Willam Dustin might be a fine candidate. A second representative from each kingdom, may be a splendid idea."

Baelish was trying to find out how the representatives would vote on the matter before it was presented to them officially. He wanted to see that he was voting with the winning team, that seemed all too obvious to Davos now.

"I am told that the Court Septon intends to advocate for the expansion of the number of representatives for each region to seven," Baelish added.

Again, Davos had to wonder who was telling Lord Baelish this. The Court Septon was hand picked by the High Septon. Who was, himself, bought and paid for by the Lannisters. The fat Westerlander who now wore the crystal crown seemed to continuously make decisions that generally corresponded with the desires of Lord Tywin Lannister. The revelation that a Lannister stooge wanted to expand the council so massively, must have a greater significance, but Davos didn't know what exactly that significance was.

"Seven?" Wendel asked.

"Yes, seven. He seems to be drawing more from religious symbolism than, say, the idea of seven representatives for the seven kingdoms," Baelish responded.

"And this suggestion includes the Iron Islands and the North?"

"One wonders."

Ser Wendel had bit into a skinless peace sausage and was chewing a mouthful of the meat when he spoke again, "The North won't abide such an insult."

"No, and I don't think that Lord Arryn is like to support such a plan either, but it would be wise if an alternative expansion was put forward before the Septon can let his plans be known."

And with that Davos understood, or at least thought he understood, what Littlefinger was playing at.

 **Author Note:** Gotta thank my new Beta reader Awakened Angel for coming on board and helping me out.


	12. Shall We Dance: Rhaella II

**Rhaella II**

Myrish mirrors were a rarity in Westeros, or so Rhaella was told. The process of making them was difficult and it was easy for less skilled craftsman to shatter the glass with heat when adding the molten metal backing that gave the mirror it's reflective appearance. At just six, Rhaella didn't particularly care about what the Myrish craftsman had done which made it possible for them to make mirrors work properly, but she did care about the little girl looking back at her. The reflection's queer mismatched eyes followed her own as she looked herself up and down. She was a gangly thing with matted and tangled silver hair, in a nightgown, and when she smiled she saw a hole where her left canine and the incisor that would have been next to it should have been. She didn't think herself very pretty, not like her mother was. In fact, she often wondered if she'd ever have beauty like that. Not because she particularly cared if she was beautiful, but because she thought that Joanna would like to be beautiful.

Long before Rhaella's father had purchased the Myrish mirrors, Rhaella had come to know what her own face looked like very well, because she shared that face with her sister. If Rhaella were to grow up to be beautiful then that would mean that Joanna would be just as pretty, and the little she-dragon thought that her sister deserved that. For, though the never born prince had caused her mother to cling to Joanna and Jaehaerys while Rhaella had struggled to keep her distance, she still cared deeply about her twin.

As if on cue, a knock came at door of the bathroom and the delicate and lisped voice of Joanna, called out to Rhaella.

"Rhae, are you done with the bath?"

"No, Joanna, I've only just started letting the faucet run."

"Alrighth, Rhae," her groggy sister replied, muffled slightly by the door.

Dragonstone had been built in the image of the architecture of Old Valyria. Few Westerosi castles could boast the sophisticated plumbing of the great fortress, and even fewer were able to provide warm water for bathing like the waters heated by the Dragonmont. The plumbing was something her father seemed oddly proud of. He'd had nothing to do with the construction of Dragonstone and had only been down in the cistern once, that Rhaella could recall, but he talked of every little facet of the fortress with such pride, that one might think he had crafted it himself.

As steam rose from the bath, the small girl thought of the great cistern. Like most of the fascinating portions of Dragonstone, Rhaella was banned from visiting it by her mother. Just as that ban had not stopped her from climbing stone dragons, it hadn't stopped her from venturing into the bowels of the castle to find the great room. Steam made it even more difficult to see in the already dark room, but the distinct sound of dripping water had told the girl where she was.

At the time, she'd thought about bringing her dragon egg down and setting it in the water. In times of old, more than a few dragons had been hatched in the waters of the heated cistern. But she had worried about losing it in the steam and had decided it best not to tempt earning her father's wroth.

After she bathed, Rhaella was dressed by Lady Laena Velaryon and sat with the older woman while Joanna washed herself.

"What will you do today, little Princess?"

"Dance atop Balerion and leap from Vhagar's back into the sea," she joked.

The older woman didn't find that amusing, and gave Rhaella a stern look.

"Maybe you do need weights around those ankles of yours, after all."

The little she-dragon's eyes widened. "I was only joking. I was going to do sums today, and maybe visit papa."

"No crocheting today?" Lady Laena asked, still eyeing Rhaella suspiciously.

The little girl made a face like the wind had suddenly shifted directions and given her a gust of sewage water.

"Please, no?" she pleaded.

"Well, I supposed you can go one more day without crochet lessons," the older woman relented.

Rhaella smiled up at her.

"Where are your teeth?"

"They hurt," the little girl whined.

She hated wearing the fake ivory teeth, almost as much as she had hated when the maester had forced the softened beeswax into her mouth to get an impression of her bite.

"I shan't relent on this, Princess. The false teeth are important. You must wear them everyday."

Not long after the painful process of putting the false teeth into her mouth was finished, Joanna exited the bathroom to be dressed. While Lady Laena did Joanna's hair up in a bun, Rhaella was quick to remind the older woman of Joanna's need for dentures.

Her sister glared at her for that. "Thurncloak, I'll hath you sent to the pyre for that."

She'd barely finished saying that when she burst into laughter, causing Lady Laena to accidentally pull her hair which ended her laughter with a sharp yelp. They spent the rest of the time Lady Laena was making Joanna presentable talking about unicorns and the places the beasts might still call home.

The twins' parents were already in the dining hall when they arrived. Little Jaehaerys sat upon their mother's lap playing with her golden hair. Rhaella looked to her father, and saw his left cheek was a bit redder than the rest of his face and there was a small cut on his cheekbone. Joanna sat next to their mother, while Rhaella placed herself at her father's side.

The meal was a relatively quiet affair, disrupted by the occasional jovial squeal of Jaehaerys as he played with his food.

"Father, who will we be seeing today?" Rhaella asked.

"I will be speaking with some representative from the Iron Bank, and handling a few other matters, but I suppose that you may sit in on my meetings."

After breakfast, Rhaella's mother spoke of taking Joanna and Jaehaerys to listen to the Red Priestess.

The first few meetings Rhaella's father had were not entertaining in the least. Someone came asking for money to start a shop, and her father and the man had spoken at length on profit margins, interest, and a number of other things Rhaella didn't understand and was too disinterested in to bother asking about. The Lyseni spymaster would speak up on occasion. He was always talkative with the guests, though he never seemed to say anything. Instead he got others to speak. They would trip themselves up on his words, and it had resulted in a handful of people being sent away wanting. Then came a septon, who Rhaella recognized from the sept in the port town. He spoke of the need for a new sept now that construction of a red temple had begun.

"Given your position, Prince Viserys, and the Dragonvault's relationship with the Faith it is important that the people see you as the truly pious man that the High Septon believes you are."

Her father shook his head in agreement, though he looked about as interested in what the Septon had to say as Rhaella did.

"Certainly—certainly. One hundred gold dragons for renovations and additions should do the old sept well."

Prince Viserys began penning out an order. Had the meeting ended right then, there would have been nothing remarkable about the affair and Rhaella would have ranked it as being less interesting than half of the other visitors. But the septon was not content with one hundred dragons.

"Given your wife's closeness with the Red Priestess, would it not be more wise to demonstrate your faith with a grander display?"

Her father's quill stopped almost immediately, and he looked up to the septon with contempt.

"Are you threatening me?"

The septon shook his head furiously. "No no no, Prince Viserys. I meant no such offense. I merely meant to state that there are already those who worry about having so much of the Faith's funds passing through the hands of a… a…"

"Usurer," her father responded coldly.

"No, My Prince… A banker, My Prince. I would never levy the charge of usury against someone as pious as you. I only mean, that there are those with less than favorable feelings towards bankers, who grow more worried about the Faith's funds, given the presence of that witch in the castle."

"Ah, so you were only thinking in my favor?" Her father smiled wolfishly at the septon.

"Yes, My Prince."

"Good, I'm glad the Faith has someone as politically minded as you to help men like myself. We are very thankful for the Faith trusting us with the collection of tithes, so it is good to be kept safe by men such as yourself."

The septon began to stammer something out, but her father raised a hand to silence him.

"Five hundred gold dragons will go into remodeling the sept. Does that sound politically advisable?"

The man of faith nodded his head in affirmation.

"Good."

"Thank you, My Prince. I should return to the sept and spread the good news."

Again, her father raised his hand.

"I've not dismissed you yet."

"My Prince?"

"You sit nearest the North and the lands beyond the Wall, do you not?"

The septon nodded, looking down at the table before him. "Yes, My Prince."

"There are very few followers of the Faith in the North, am I correct?"

"Correct, My Prince, White Harbor is our only real foothold in the North," he warily replied.

"Tragic. If only the Faith had men of such political acumen as yourself, mayhaps more than White Harbor would be in the hands of the Faith."

"Mayhaps, My Prince." The septon looked around nervously, eyes darting from Rhealla to her father, and then to the silent spymaster.

"Well, we will have to do our part to change that, now won't we?"

"I beg your pardon, My Prince, but I don't understand."

"Could you name me a hold or castle in the North?"

"What, My Prince?"

Her father turned to look at her, a smile on his face, but his eyes filled with anger.

"Rhaella, can you name me a place in the North?"

Rhaella's mind turned to the last of the unicorns, hidden away upon a stony island in the far North.

"Driftwood Hall," she replied.

"It's decided then," her father loudly pronounced.

"What is, My Prince?" The septon asked apprehensively.

"Why, the location I mean to send you to proselytize in of course."

Her father's voice was jovial, but there was a sharpness to it that made it easy for Rhaella to understand what he was doing.

"I… I don't understand." The septon's eyes were wide with horror.

"When our meeting is done, I mean to pen a letter to the High Septon detailing my intention to gift the Faith one thousand gold dragons. Five hundred for the remodeling of the sept here, another three hundred for the Faith to do as it pleases with, and two hundred for you to put to work purchasing land and building a sept in Driftwood Hall."

"B-b-but, My...My Prince."

"You will be supremely missed."

The septon stood their looking mortified at her father as he began to pen something out. The prince paused and looked up from his letter. "Oh, you're dismissed."

As Rhaella watched the septon slowly make his way out of the room, she finally began to understand what she had done to the man.

"Papa, why?"

Again her father stopped writing. He looked at her, not with the contempt he had looked upon the septon with or the love his eyes were normally filled with when they met her own, but with a harshness that came when someone "woke the dragon".

"Because we are dragons, and when a rat thinks that it may challenge us we must demonstrate to all the other vermin that one does not challenge a dragon without being turned to ash."

Rhaella nodded in understanding, because she knew her father wanted to see that she understood. Yet the little girl couldn't help but look to the door that the septon had departed from and fear for what she had done to him. The thought of her role, turned her stomach into knots.

 _I didn't mean to._

Through the next meeting, Rhaella continued to stew on the septon's fate while her father held an audience with a Myrish man. It was late in the day, and two more men had visited with her father, when a man from Braavos entered into her father's hall. He was presented as Cossomo Dianchi of the Iron Bank.

Just as Rhaella was preparing to settle in for another less than interesting discussion of trade, loans, and taxes, her father looked to her.

"Dear, it would be best if you went to see Maester Rickard to work on sums. I've matters with our noble guest that only interest myself and our friend Cossomo Dianchi."

"Papa-" she started to speak, not really to protest her father's decision, only for her father to raise a finger to silence her.

"Practice your sums and tomorrow I promise that you can spend the entire day with me." He smiled and leaned in. "Even when I go down to the port."

 _The port._

Though she hated the prospect of working on sums with Maester Rickard, the idea of getting rewarded with leaving the castle was too great of an offering by her father for little Rhaella to be anything other than happy.

"Yes, Papa," she beamed up at him.

 _The port._

As Rhaella left the hall, she tried not to think of the septon being sent to Skagos and her role in sending him to the island. Instead, she tried to focus her thoughts on going down to town with her father.

 _Joanna will be so jealous, but what will she say of the septon? Will she be mad? She'd have understood what Father was doing. She'd have named someplace nice for the septon to go, not think of wild unicorns and cannibals._

Rhaella wanted to banish thoughts of the septon from her mind, but the look of horror and shock upon his face refused to fade away.


	13. Shall We Dance: Cat I

**Cat I**

Even after a decade and a half of living in the North, Lady Catelyn still felt like a stranger in the godswood of Winterfell. This place told the story of a harsh and old land and reflected that in its look. The ancient place of worship differed greatly from the vibrant and beautiful godswood she had known in her youth. They served different purposes and told very different tales of the people that came to them. Here, her husband and their children worshipped in silence, praying to the ancient spirits and gods that lived in the trees, streams, and stones of the North. The old way had been embraced by her children. This place was as much their place of worship as it was her husband's, but it was not Catelyn's. Her quiet husband had built a sept for her so that she might worship her southern gods in her southern way. Few, outside of herself, made use of that sept, but she was not alone in worshipping there. The Kingsguard, Ser Arthur Dayne, who protected her nephew, and his niece found time in the sept as well.

His niece.

It was better for her to think of the girl as Ser Arthur's niece, but it was impossible to not think of her as Catelyn's niece and equally as difficult to not be filled with the troubling array of emotions that came with that thought. When Lady Catelyn had first arrived in Winterfell, with a suckling babe at her chest, she found her husband had already brought with him two infants, a little boy, and a little girl. They could have been twins given the closeness of their age and the dark hair that had already come to adorn the tops of their heads, but they were cousins. The boy was a little dragon, the last son of his namesake, the elder Rhaegar Targaryen, the man who was responsible for the disastrous rebellion and the losses that had come with it. Whether he was the illborn product of rape and forced marriage or the product of two hopeless romantics who knew not what their actions might cause varied with whomever you asked.

Lady Catelyn had asked her husband about his thoughts on the subject, and he had said it mattered not to him. "I'd not met the man who could make my sister do something she opposed. Still, even in her fierceness, the strength of a man her senior was like to be greater than her own. There was no time for discussion of her captivity. When I found Lyanna, her light was fading fast. Solemn vows were spoken and a promise was made. The boy is of my blood and I will love him as my sister would have. That is all that truly matters."

The other child was not of regal birth, but their origins were nearly as troubling. Lyanna Snow was the only natural-born daughter of Lady Catelyn's late betrothed, Brandon Stark. Or at the very least, she was the only one whose existence was known to Lady Catelyn. Older than Rhaegar and Robb, she was the eldest of the children in Winterfell. Brandon had been Cat's betrothed when he'd bedded the Dornishwoman, Lady Ashara Dayne, at the tourney of Harrenhal and sired the great bastard. She didn't hate Brandon for returning to the comfort of Lady Ashara's arms during his time in the dungeons of Kingslanding prior to his murder. Nor was it as if the idea that Brandon had sired a bastard particularly shocking or surprising. The Wild Wolf's reputation had been known to her and her father, though she'd hoped that after their marriage he would settle down. That being said, it was hard not to feel betrayed with the knowledge that Brandon's affair with the Lady Ashara had begun before his captivity, long after their betrothal.

She did not have hate Brandon's daughter, and she should have had little reason to fear her but to say that she loved the bastard child of the long dead Brandon Stark would be a lie. Were the girl born a boy, Catelyn might have had a greater fear of her, maybe even a hatred of sorts. For Brandon's heir might have had more claim on Winterfell than even her lord husband, and bastards were a treacherous sort by birth. Catelyn had thought that she would never have to fear such a thing from a girl. She had imagined her son's birthright safe, but then the Red Viper had come to the North.

He had come with gifts and talked of friendship, but Catelyn had heard him speak of the Dornish way of things. She had heard him muse of how the eldest daughter of a Dornish house would inherit her family lands over her younger brothers. Her husband had not seen it for what it was, but to Catelyn, it was plain that the Dornishman was threatening Eddard. When she'd voiced her concerns, Ned had tried to assure her that the Red Viper had no intentions for Lyanna. He had never spoken of what the Viper had wanted when he had come to stay with them, but that he wanted something seemed all too obvious to Cat. Prince Oberyn wanted it enough to threaten to push Lyanna's claim.

If the Red Viper thought he could rouse the Northern lords to Lyanna's cause, he would fail miserably. No woman had ever ruled Winterfell in her own right. There had been regents to young boys and wounded husbands, but never a Lady Paramount of the North. Yet, the girl was not the baseborn get off some washerwoman. She was a great bastard with the blood of two ancient and noble firstmen houses flowing through her veins and, despite Catelyn's hopes to send the girl off to the Silent Sisters, Ned spoke of marrying her to Ser Wendel Manderly, Eddard Karstark, or Daryn Hornwood.

She still remembered when she'd tried to persuade him out of such matches.

"The Starks have maintained the loyalty and devotion of the North for thousands of years, thanks in part to the fact that nearly every Northern House has a Stark in their family. My brother will never take a wife at the Wall, and at your heed, I consider a dozen matches for Robb from the Vale and the Riverlands and entertain the notion of sending Bran to squire in the south. If the future Lord of Winterfell does not have a Northern wife and his brother is sent away to the Vale then Lyanna must marry a Northerner to balance the scales," Ned had told her.

The North might not rise for Lyanna, but what of her children? Had not the dreams of the Blackfyre pretenders survived the death of Daemon through his sons? If Robb were to die without issue, might the girl's children press a claim for Winterfell? This Viper was a poisoner who had been a sellsword in the East. He was just the sort of treacherous serpent who might extinguish an entire family to make Brandon's grandson the Lord of Winterfell if it proved advantageous to him and if he had the support of the Karstarks, Manderlys, or Hornwoods then the North would bleed.

That Ned seemed to be unable to see any threat from the girl had troubled Catelyn greatly. Not only was there no suspicion from Ned, he loved her, as he loved his own children and his sister's son.

Thinking of the girl only served to trouble Lady Catelyn further than the contents of the letter she now brought to her husband already had. Her footsteps, though light, were loud enough for her husband to hear as she approached him. He looked up from cleaning his family's Valyrian greatsword, Ice. Though his face was solemn, a warm smile greeted Lady Catelyn.

The blood that was like to have coated his ancient blade had been washed away, but Catelyn looked to it all the same.

"A horse thief," her lord husband said solemnly. "The second man that I've had to take to the block this year." The old Stark way of the man who passes the sentence swings the sword still seemed strange to Cat, but she understood what it meant for her husband and his people and the sentiment behind it. "I thought of bringing Bran, but he can wait a little longer. Maybe it would be better if Robb and Rhaegar were here for him when that happened."

At the mention of the two boys' names, Catelyn's expression grew dour.

"What troubles you, my Lady?"

Catelyn produced a letter.

"A raven arrived today, my love. It seems that three members of the Night's Watch attempted to set upon the boys in the night; thinking they might ransom the king's brother for safe passage to Essos. Ser Arthur dispatched them quickly, and the boys are safe, but Robb writes of it with all the enthusiasm of a summer child. He also says that he and Rhaegar are setting out to tour the North."

"This turn is unfortunate," Ned sighed. "The state of the Watch has been in decline for some time. Too few southern lordlings going to the Wall. I will write to Lords Ryswell, Dustin, and Manderly to see if they have men to spare. Their families will be looked after, of course. Still, it's good to know that the boys are unharmed and while Robb may be young for a Lord's Progress, it is good that he is getting to know the North. Every day he grows closer to manhood; he may even come home to us with a wife."

Her husband's added jape about a marriage he must have thought unlikely troubled Catelyn almost as much as his acceptance of the boys' dangerous venture. She had every faith in her husband, but Robb wasn't yet a man. He was a boy playing at being a hedge knight and it terrified her.

"They mean to take a barge down the Last River to a point near enough to the Dreadfort for an easy ride," she said, hoping that her husband's distrust of the Leech Lord might rouse him into action.

Ned gazed hard upon the ancient blade before him, silently contemplating before he eventually broke his silence and responded.

"If they left the day after the letter was sent, then it's more than possible to arrive at the Dreadfort before them. The barge ride on the Last River will certainly shorten their travel time, but riding south from the Wall to the river and then riding from the river to the Dreadfort will take time."

Her husband put away his blade and raised himself.

"I will fetch Ser Rodrik and some men and I'll need Luwin to write to Lord Bolton, to make him aware of my intention to meet Robb and Rhaegar at the Dreadfort."

A wave of relief flooded over Cat.

Ned will bring my boy home safely. She knew that.

...

"I want to go with father to the Dreadfort," Arya groaned.

Cat shook her head, no. The Leech Lord was a loyal vassal to Ned, but the man was disconcerting, to say the least.

"Domeric is supposed to be as gallant as the Knights of the Vale, I've heard," Sansa mused. "Mayhaps, I should ride out with Father?"

"Ew! Sansa's a crush on Domeric Bolton!" Arya teased.

"Do not!"

"Do so!"

"Do not!"

"Do-"

"Girls! Silence. I realize you both wish to travel with your father, but this is not a social affair. He means to meet your brother and Prince Rhaegar and return with them in tow."

"Might it not be good if I met Domeric though, mother?" Sansa asked.

Lady Catelyn sighed. She was glad that Sansa had eyes on being a proper lady, but Domeric Bolton was not the young man for her to fixate upon.

"Mayhaps another time, dear. He's like to have only just returned from the Vale if he has even made it home yet. You do not wish to impose upon someone when they are still weary from travel, do you?"

Sansa nodded in agreement, though she looked saddened by having to accept this.

"Maybe he'll come to Winterfell, with Robb and Rhaegar?" Sansa wondered.

If the gods were good, they would keep the Leech Lord's son away from her children. Sansa would be better off in the Riverlands than as the Lady of the Dreadfort. There was little reason to have Roose Bolton any nearer to their family than he already was.

"What if Robb comes home with a wife?" Arya asked.

"Your brother isn't coming home with a wife, Arya. He's just a boy," Cat replied.

"But what if he does? Sansa, you remember Bessa Umber, don't you? What if he brings her back?"

For all her pretensions of being a courtly lady, Sansa's face was just a bit too honest. She wanted to be polite, but the thought of Robb and Bessa as a couple didn't sit well with her.

"Your brother isn't married to Bessa Umber. He'd have said something about it in the letter."

Gods, Cat hoped she was right about Robb returning home unwed. Bessa Umber was unlikely to catch his eye, but she was not the only Lady that Robb would have come in contact with on his trip to the Wall. Might Annag Lake or one of the daughters of the lords sworn to the Umbers have ensnared Robb? The daughter of a petty lord as future Lady of Winterfell was not something that Cat thought highly of. It would be better to have him marry a Mallister or Blackwood to further strengthen the North's bonds with the Riverlands, or if he was determined to marry a northern girl, then a girl from one of the higher noble houses would have been a wiser match as her husband had advocated for. There were two Manderly daughters that might make a good union and if Catelyn recalled correctly, Lord Howland Reed had a daughter whose age was the same as Robb's as well. Then there was Bethany Dustin, who was of an age with Sansa. Her mother was like to have been a Stark before the rebellion, maybe whatever old enmities Lady Barbrey held towards the Starks would be washed away should her daughter become one.

All the same, the idea of Robb marrying felt too close for Cat.

Let him remain a boy. If only for a few more years.

It was Sansa's turn to pester Arya with a question.

"What if Rhaegar brings home a wife?"

Little Arya looked to be more than a little angered by that question. That Arya had a close friendship with her princely cousin was clear to most, even if Cat sometimes wished it wasn't.

"Rhaegar won't marry some girl he's just met He'd never marry someone without discussing it with Father first. He's a prince. They have to clear these things. You know? Marry someone of high birth." Arya replied.

"Someone like you?"

"Ew!" Arya's face contorted in over exaggerated disgust. "No! Just someone important. You understand?"

"That didn't stop Prince Duncan Targaryen from marrying a peasant girl," Sansa offered back.

"Well, that's just not going to happen."

"But it could."

"But it won't."

"But it might."

"But it-"

"Girls!" Catelyn intervened, shaking her head.

"I didn't do anything, Mother. Arya was the one that got all flustered and started arguing."

"Arya shouldn't be so quick to anger, but you should not try and goad her into these things. Now, your father will be leaving soon, so we must find your brothers and go out to see him off and wish him a safe return."

The girls nodded and begrudgingly accepted the end of their hostilities.


	14. Shall We Dance: Tyrion I

**Tyrion I**

"A night in a new city without whores," Tyrion Lannister wistfully mumbled to himself.

Over the years, the Lannister dwarf had garnered quite the reputation regarding his lechery and whoring, but here he sat, alone, and sober. Were it not for the letter he'd received on his journey east, he'd have found himself in one of the brothel's of Duskendale or feasting in Lord Rykker's halls. The former being more preferable than the later. Instead, he found himself wishing he had not misplaced his copy of Gyldayn's _The Princess and The Queen, or, The Blacks and The Greens_ and counting the floorboards of his dimly lit room, waiting for his midnight caller to end the monotony of his current situation.

The hour of the bat gave way to the eel which in turn gave way to that of ghosts, as Tyrion counted and recounted floorboards before turning to counting the knots in the boards. It was with the arrival of the hour of the owl, that a caller came knocking at his door.

Before Tyrion could extend an invitation to the caller the door creaked open and the imposing figure of a man scared by fire peered in.

"This might be a bit difficult of a concept for you to understand, but when one knocks on someone's door it is common courtesy to allow them to invite you in or at least answer the door first."

If the half-sarcastic chide had any impact on the intruder, the grim looking figure didn't show it on his face. Instead, he opened the door further, revealing a hooded figure adjacent to him.

Even after many years of not seeing him, Tyrion recognized his father as he stepped into the room. Despite trying to conceal himself, the Old Lion of Casterly Rock, held himself high and exuded a stern commanding presence. His father may have concealed his identity, but any noble worth his salt would see immediately that the cloaked figure was of noble birth. Though as Tyrion thought about this, he realized he could count the number of lords and ladies worth their salt on one of his pudgy fingered hands.

His father turned after taking a few steps into the room, "If anyone steps into the hallway, instruct them to return to their quarters. if they refuse, quietly handle the situation... And I do mean quietly."

The burned man simply nodded his head and closed the door, leaving father and son alone.

Turning back to his son, Tywin removed his hood and began.

"I'm almost surprised to see that you listened to me. I half expected you to be putting the life of _another_ whore in danger."

Tyrion tried to conceal a cringe of anger and pain at that, and chose not to respond to the provocation.

"Well, Father, what may I ask is of such urgency and secrecy that it would require you arranging this meeting in Duskendale? If you wanted to speak with me, I could have taken a ferry from Kingslanding to Dragonstone, rather than from Duskendale. It wouldn't have been much of a bother, and I could have visited some of the exquisite whorehouses in capital."

"This conversation requires a degree of secrecy that, unfortunately, may not be possible in Kingslanding," the Old Lion responded, while pulling out a chair and seating himself across from his son.

"Not trusting of your fellow regents?" Tyrion half-joked.

"I trust Jon Arryn to try and limit any move I make and that is about all. No, with the king's Name Day but a few short months away, the schemers and plotters are working to ensure that they remain a powerful force after the end of his regency. They aren't content with the Council of Lords as is. If they thought they could stab me in the spine, they would do so without a second thought."

"And who do you plan to stab in the spine with your plot, Father?"

Lord Tywin gave him a grim silent glare, before going on.

"I intend to throw a tourney for our king's Name Day."

Tyrion, eyed his father queerly. He did not recall Tywin Lannister being one for festivities, but he did recall a regent long since passed that his father might be drawing inspiration from.

"It's wise to remember that Lord Unwin Peake's Maiden Day Ball, failed spectacularly for him father."

"It's good to see that you remain well read."

"I don't spend my every waking moment exclusively whoring. I manage to find the time to advise Jamie and sometimes read even a good book."

His father didn't look amused by Tyrion's boasts, and went on.

"Wedding one of your nieces to the Aegon would certainly be a boon, but it is not the primary goal of this affair. I am not so foolish a man as to bet the future of House Lannister on a simpleton falling in love with one of my granddaughters. No, the main purpose of this exercise is to find suitable matches for your nieces, cousins, and yourself and the alliances that come with such betrothal pacts. Though I do place a great deal of importance on depriving the Tyrell's of a marriage to Aegon."

"My marriage?" Tyrion responded caught slightly off guard.

"Yes, it's time for your end your lechery and settle down. I had intended for you to become Lord of Pyke, and this lifestyle of yours to come to an end, but Jon Arryn saw that the marriage would not be. That you will not be Lord of Pyke changes not the fact that you are a Lannister, and your lifestyle is most unbecoming and must end."

Tyrion had grown used to insults like embarrassment, monster, abomination, being flung his way, even when they were levied by his father. Lord Tywin would never forget that Tyrion was born a dwarf so he would never allow him to forget it either.

"I can't imagine there would be a great many high lords that would be willing to offer up their daughter's hand in marriage to a landless dwarf."

"Perhaps not, but we will never have to find out if that is the case. As they will be offering their daughters to the Lord of Castamere."

"Lord of Castamere, you say?"

"Yes, Castamere and Tarbeck Hall have laid in ruin for long enough. I intend for your uncle to be given the ruins of Tarbeck Hall, while you make Castamere your keep."

"It would cost a fortune to drain Castamere and rebuild it's ruins," Tyrion responded.

"I will bestow upon you a starting sum to revive Castamere's gold mining operations, which you can use to fund the project in part. When you have an audience with Viserys you will enquirer about a loan from the Dragonvault. He will of course extend one to you and you will in turn use this to build a minor keep over the remains of Castamere from which you can oversee the mines and the rebuilding of Castamere proper."

"You seem to have thought of everything, Father. Do you even have a bride already picked out for me?" Tyrion's snark was lost on no one.

"I would recommend Talla Tarly, peeling her father's loyalty from the Tyrells would be a boon for our cause. However, you may pick your own bride. Or rather, you must win over your own bride at the tourney."

"This exchange has been enlightening and enriching, but I've yet to see why it needed to be held in here."

"Because I am placing the organization of this tourney in your hands. You will be playing the role of matchmaker for dozens well before our competitors and it will demand secrecy and careful planning. If you can navigate a way to marrying Aegon to Rhaella or Joanna,our position would certainly be strengthened, but his marriage to a child would be beneficial in the time table extension might would provide us. What matters most is dividing our enemies for what is to come."

"And what is to come?"

"If the gods are good and men are wise"- he paused and looked grimly down upon Tyrion before continuing-"Nothing."

…

"A turd in your teeth", an angry fishwife yelled out at someone, though Tyrion couldn't be sure who. The docks of Duskendale were alive and yet even amidst the hustle and bustle of trade, the little lord was left with little to do other than fume over having missed the morning ferry.

Glaring up at Sandor Clegane, the dwarf started in once again on him.

"You knew when the ferry was leaving. It would have been nice if you'd awoken me so I wouldn't be standing on the dock with my cock in my hand."

"As I recall, you told me not to disturb you after you father left and you brought in those whores."

Tyrion's brow furrowed in annoyance, "My brother could have sent anyone to act as my escort, but he had to send you."

"I don't recall, you complaining so vocally, when I skewered those highwaymen. Or when I told the fat inn-keep to sit the fuck down after he caught you with his wife."

"She never said she wasn't a whore." Tyrion shook his head and continued walking down the busy dock looking for an alternate means to Dragonstone.

"One of these ships are like to be doing some trading in Dragonstone. Hopefully I'll be able to buy passage for us so we won't have to wait half a day for another ferry."

Scouting his options, Tyrion settled on trying out a fast looking Dornish dhow. The ship's captain, a gruff looking Stoney Dornishman, was shouting at some of his crew on the dock when Tyrion called out to him.

"Impressive looking vessel. It looks particularly fast."

The Dornishman eyed him, before responding, "Because she is. The _Nay Sar_ can outrun any pirate ship in the Stepstones and we've run our fair share of Tyroshi and Pentoshi blockades as well."

Tyrion feigned being impressed as he looked the little ship up and down.

"I'm sure with a vessel like this, you would be able to make a quick trip to Dragonstone in half the time it would take a ferry."

"A quarter of the time, more like," he boasted.

"Excellent, then I'd like to charter your ship. I can make it worth-"

"I can't help you," the Dornishman cut in.

"If it's about payment there's no need to worry."

"Keep your stags, dwarf. I can see from you and your burned friend, that you're performers and you're like to make a fair bit of coin making asses of yourselves for nobles, but a dozen stags aren't going to make up the cost of not being able to fill up the _Nay Sar_ 's false bottom."

"False bottom?"

"Aye, little man. A decent thirty percent of my profits come from the goods we smuggle in that aren't taxed. If you'd come by yesterday, I'd take your money, but the Dragonstone harbor master is doing ship inspections today. I won't risk losing a hand for smuggling on a day like this, and I won't waste the money paying my men for a voyage that we won't recoup our loses on."

"And how much money would you be making on a normal trip?"

"Between five and ten gold dragons, dependin' upon the cargo," he replied.

With that, Tyrion fished around in his satchel and pulled out 6 dragons.

"I can give you six now, and four more when we get to Dragonstone," he smiled slyly.

The Dornishman walked down the rickety steps from his ship to the dock below, until he stood before Tyrion and Sandor.

"I won't ask who you robbed. I don't care, but if you bring the law down on me, I'll have my men skin the both of you alive before I get sent to prison."

"You can try," Sandor responded gruffly. His hand gripping the hilt of the blade Tyrion has seen him cut a man in half with.

"Calm yourself, dog. He's being perfectly reasonable. You won't have to worry about the safety of your crew. So long as you can get us to Dragonstone, before sundown everything will be quite alright."

"I'll be wantin' another two dragons for this then."

"It's a deal, then," Tyrion said as he shook the captain's hand.

At twelve gold dragons, this would probably be the most expensive boat ride Tyrion had ever taken. He might have lost more on a gambling barge on the Trident, but the vast majority of that had been other people's money, and at least that time he'd been drunk off his arse and in the company of a few good whores. Still, after his things had been loaded onto the ship, he eagerly hoped the money would be worth it. He needed to arrive at the port before the ferry, lest he make his brother by marriage wait too long. There were a lot of way to convince someone to give you a large quantity of money, but making them wait several hours was not one Tyrion thought would work out well for him. At least in this case.

The dhow cut through the water at a brisk pace, its undulating movements feeling like the ship was skipping across the tops of waves.

As much as Tyrion wanted to focus on going through the list of names of marriageable age lords and ladies and planning where he would locate the each guest's tent, the ship's brisk pace made his stomach feel as though it might rebel against him at any moment. The waters of the great bay churned under the dhow, causing the ship to lurch up and forward, nearly knocking Tyrion to the ground.

As a deckhand walked by Tyrion and Sandor, the uneasy passenger looked to the gaunt and gangly young lad and asked, "Is there some place I could sit down during the voyage?"

The deckhand let out a chortle before replying, "This isn't a ferry or a pleasure ship, my friend. You could try the crew quarters, but I'd wager none'd be too happy about having you sitting among their things."

With nowhere to rest, Tyrion settled in for the journey and chose to distract himself with bird watching. He'd never been a fan of the hobby, but he'd read several books on the birds of Westeros so he thought he'd give it a try only to find that there were painfully few birds that flew over the Blackwater Bay.

Eventually, Dragonstone and Driftmark, which had first appeared as a specks at the edge of the world, grew larger and larger, until the shore of Driftmark came clearly into view. The husk of a long dead city, mostly worn away since its sacking, sat beneath the shadow of the ruins of castle High Tide. The Dance had not been kind to this place, that had once been among the richest port cities in Westeros. The Velaryon's hadn't known it when it happened, and Tyrion wondered if Lord Monford Velaryon knew it now, but the Dance had been the beginning of the end for House Velaryon's golden age. Certainly the Oakenfist had gained the house much glory, and since then many a Lord of Driftmark had served as Master of Ships for the Iron Throne, but their strength was never what it had been before the Dance. Without the income from Spice Town, High Tide was never able to be fully rebuild from its state of ruin and without the protection of High Tide there would be no rebuilding and resettling of Spice Town. The circular reasoning behind it wasn't lost on Tyrion, but it didn't make the haunted looking ruins feel any less melancholic. A token force of guards still manned the corpse of a castle to ensure that pirates and smugglers didn't try and make the place their home. For even in its dilapidated state, it was still more defensible than most of the pirate forts on the Stepstones and would have made an incredible prize for any of the pirate lords. Nonetheless, it was a financial drain on the Velaryons that only fell further and further into a state of decay and ruin.

The _Nay Sar_ left the husk of High Tide and Spice Town behind as it sailed along to coast of Driftmark towards the isle of Dragonstone. Tyrion watched the shore of the steam hidden island, scanning for their destination, until at last he saw it. Tucked away within an inlet, and beneath the looming hulk of the Dragonsmount and great black stone walls of castle Dragonstone, lay the fast growing Dragonsport. Tyrion tried to take in as much of the city as he could while the dhow made port. He had imagined it Spice Town reborn when he'd read of it, and that seemed to be true. The city climbed into the mountains and foothills that surrounded the natural lagoon, shacks and shops growing upwards as well as outwards, and spilled into the lagoon where a mixture of raised foundations and boats were latched together to create a web with which the young city caught commerce. Even at first glance, Tyrion could see that the city was already too large for it own good. It had grown quickly and without a great deal of forethought. It was a wild and untamed thing, and with that realization he couldn't help but smile.

"What're you smilin' at?" asked the hulking figure of Sandor Clegane beside him.

"Everything."

.

"Careful with that crate,"Tyrion called up to the two crewman of the _Nay Sar_ that had volunteered to carry his supplies off of the ship. With each step the pair took across the bridge that connected the ship to the pier, it undulated and danced, calling up visions of the crate nestling at the bottom of the lagoon next to the old sunken ships that helped keeps chunks of the town afloat. When the crate was at last set down upon the, slightly, more stable pier, the sailors gave Tyrion a wordless yet expectant look. _More money. This really is shaping up to be my most expensive ship ride. Tyrion silently bemoaned before giving the men a copper groat each._

The pier was alive with the sounds of disgruntled sailors and traders, as they waited for inspection by the harbor master or one of his assistants. An angry Tyroshi captain argued in broken Westerosi with a sandy-haired harbor officer about irregularities in the number of casks of spiced wine he was carrying, flailing his arms around and thrusting four fingers into the other man's face, while a churlish Sandy Dornishwoman with breast the size of cantaloupes that kept Tyrion's attention on her for a bit longer than most of the other characters on the pier decried the time it was taking for the inspection of her ship. As he took in the pier, the voices of the _Nay Sa_ r's crew crept up on him as they passed him by.

"We'll be here until nightfall at least, thanks to you, dwarf. The least I can do is give the men leave to spend coin and time in one of the town's bars or hot springs," the _Nay Sar_ 's Captain groaned.

"At 12 dragons, you were more than fairly compensated. A Lannister always pays his debts."

The Dornish captain looked down at Tyrion's grinning face. He was wordless for a few moments before the realization of what Tyrion's words meant finally set in.

"You're not a dwarf. You're _The Dwarf._ "

"Oh, no I can most certainly agree with the first half of your statement. I am as a point of fact, a dwarf."

"You're the Prince's goodbrother. Why didn't you say anything? I could have charged you 20 dragons easy, or Hells maybe even 25."

With a grin and a little laugh, Tyrion replied, "You never asked."

And with that he turned to Sandor and with a wave of his hand said, "Let's go."

The large man lifted the crate and the pair made their way down the pier. As they passed the Dornishwoman, the harbor officer that was conducting the inspection of her ship, turned around in yelled out at them.

"You there! Halt right this instant. That crate will need to be inspected. Seat yourself, and wait like every other honest sailor on the pier."

"Ahh, but my good man, I'm not an honest sailor." Tyrion replied

"Are you freely admitting to piracy?" The wide eyed harbor officer questioned.

"Oh, nothing of the sort. I only mean to say that I'm no sailor and neither is my man here. We booked passage on the _Nay Sar_ after missing the ferry. The crate is full of my things. The Hound may be content with wearing the same thing day in and day out, but I like to make myself look a bit pretty when I'm raiding the brothels."

The harbor officer's brow furrowed and he barked out, "I don't care if you're passengers or sailors. You'll sit down and wait your turn or you'll be spending the rest of the week in the stockade for civil disobedience if your story is true... And if it's false you'll lose a hand or take the Black."

"I intend to visit the Wall one day to see if it's as imposing a structure as Lomas Longstrider makes it out to be, but I'm in no rush to see it. I am however in quite the rush to get to Castle Dragonstone. It's been so long since I've seen my dear sister, the Princes Cersei, and I would feel just terrible making her wait any longer."

Tyrion could go a lifetime without ever seeing his sister again, but standing on the pier for the next two hours waiting for one of the guards to eventually come over and sift through his things was not high on his list of ways he wanted to spend the day. He still had time before his sister and the prince expected him, if he wasn't held up at the pier he could visit one of the brothel's that had sprung up around one of the many hot springs of the island and have a nice warm soak while a girl who might have been the great great granddaughter of some Targaryen bastard taught him what it was like to ride a dragon.

The harbor officer's demeanor turned frantic as he hurried down the ramp that connected the Dornishwoman's ship and the pier.

"Do forgive me, Lord Tyrion. I should have recognized you from the stories. All good ones, my lord. Allow me to expedite this whole affair."

The man pulled out a piece of parchment and began to quickly jot down something on it, before eventually handing it off to Tyrion.

"If anyone else questions you about your chest, all you need to do is show them that letter and they'll pester you no more." Before Tyrion could thank the man or poke fun at him, the harbor officer perked up once more. "Do you need guards, my lord? I'd be happy to lend you some of my own. It may slow down the inspections, but these sailors can learn to wait."

Tyrion thanked him, but politely declined, "Ser Sandor is the only guard I need."

"Yes yes, but of course," he replied before bidding the dwarf and the burned man farewell.

The street weren't as crowded, as Tyrion had imagined they'd be nor were the docks. _I'd wager the Dornish captain wasn't the only sailor avoiding the harbor master's gaze by staying out of port for the day. He thought as he counted the anemic number of ships at port._ Tyrion shifted from counting ships, to taking in the sites and sounds of the city. A street prior stood in front of a large stone dragon and shouted out something about redemption and repentance as Tyrion and Sandor walked by, while the men angrily haggled over the price of beaver pelts.

"I tell you they are the rising fashion trend in Oldtown. You can find many a maiden asking about caps and coats of soft Northern Beavers." one of the men said.

"Then sell them in Oldtown if you believe you can get a Moon for five pelts, because I won't go any than my previous offer." the other man yelled back.

Though the haggling of merchants and the ravings of zealots might prove interesting, Tyrion paid them little mind. The little man was on a mission to find one the hot spring brothels he'd heard about and spend the next few hours, and to do that he'd need to venture deeper inland and up into the hills that the burgeoning city climbed into.

Tyrion looked back at the lumbering figure of Sandor Clegane as walked unmoved by his surroundings and unperturbed by the chest he was carrying.

"Smile Sandor," Tyrion joked. "It's a new place, with new people. Once we find hot spring you can take a load off and enjoy the sweet release of tension I'm told the warm waters prov-"

Before Tyrion could finish his sentence something hit him hard from behind. The weight was not all that much, but the suddenness of it sent him tumbling forward, his hand raised so as to blunt the fall. When Tyrion struck the hard ground, whatever had knocked him over landed on his back and did its best to try and extend the meeting of his face with the stone. The thing squirmed and in the voice of a young girl ferociously apologized and it lifted itself off of him.

"Sorry… sorry," she repeated as she lifted herself up. "I didn't mean to knock you over, little one. Where's your mama?"

"Still in the family crypt of Casterly Rock I should hope." Tyrion replied as he rolled himself over and looked up as his attacker.

She was a young girl, though it appeared to Tyrion that she already stood taller than him. Her messy hair was like a waterfall of spun silver, cascading down her shoulders marking her instantly as being of the blood of old Valyria. Where, even in its disheveled state, the girls hair was beautiful, her face was more homely. Her face was to thin, her forehead just a little to large, and her nose ended in a slight upturn, and perhaps most queer of all were her mismatched eyes of green and purple. Her dress though, was a beautiful thing of crimson and black linen fabrics in the Pentoshi style marked her as highborn and with that, Tyrion realized what the child was to him.

"You're not a child," her eyes wide with surprise.

"No, I'm a woods witch," he japed, "Now, do be a dear, and help me to my feet..." he took a shot in the dark, "Princess Rhealla."

"You know me?" he asked while extending a helping hand.

"As I said, I'm a woods witch. I've seen you in my dreams," he laughed, happy that the coin toss had gone his way.

The little girl's face contorted in disbelief and she looked to be about to say something when they heard a shrill voice shout, "Princess!"

A matronly looking noblewoman flanked by two Dragoncloaks rushed towards Tyrion and the little girl. The woman roughly grabbed her by the wrist and and began to drag her away at her, loudly scolding her. She yelled about dangers, and her family, while the girl moaned about adventure and freedom, until Tyrion could not bare to listen to it any longer.

 _I will have to visit the hot springs another time._

"I would ask that you unhand, my niece," there was an air of authoritativeness that Tyrion generally reserved for gambling and bullshitting, that made the dwarf feel strange about his decree.

The woman turned around searching for Tyrion, taking more than a few moments to realize that the person accosting her was a dwarf.

"You're what?"

"I should think one of my sister's ladies would know of her brother's stature? Or that he travels with a fairly distinctive guard."he pointed towards a silent Sandor Clegane.

"Lord, Tyrion?" her head nodded up and down as if to answer her own question.

"In the flesh."

"I thought uncle was supposed to be mama's twin?"

"Our brother, Jaime, is. I was blessed with not sharing that most unfortunate of connections."

"My Lord," the woman interrupted, "The Prince of Dragonstone awaits your arrival and the arrival of his other guests for this evening's feast at the harbor master's office. I would be happy to take you to him."

As much as Tyrion wanted to gallivant around the city, he wagered it was wiser for a man looking for a loan to not aggravate the man handing out said loan.

"Of course, of course. Lead the way."

As they walked the little princess pulled herself away from the woman and sidled up to Tyrion.

"We have the same eyes." she murmured as she looked him up and down.

"Aye, we do share a passing family resemblance," he tried to play down their resemblance. A little girl didn't need to be told she looked like her ugly little monster of an uncle.

"Is it common among Lannisters? I've asked mama… um err… mother, but she doesn't seem to know."

"Not that I've been able to find, Princess."

Tyrion had wondered the same thing when he was his nieces' age. He'd spent years reading through family genealogy books looking for more Lannister's with queer mismatched eyes like his own. He'd hoped to find dozens if not hundreds when combing through the millennia, to show his father that he had the Lannister look, but in the end, even counting the various cadet branches of House Lannister, he found not even a half dozen. Most of which were not directly related to his father and mother. Tyrion had felt a small bit of satisfaction when he'd first heard that Cersei's daughters had eyes similar to his own. He'd even gone so far as to send a raven to his father congratulating him on becoming a grandfather while casually remarking on similarities between their eyes.

 _Truely, they are blessed with a distinctive Lannister look._

A part of him had hoped for a reply, but Lord Tywin had never responded.

 _Even now that you give me Castamere, am I still a bastard in your eyes, father?_

As they walked, Tyrion saw the princess cautiously steal glances at the Hound.

"Trying to figure out what your gift is?"

Rhealla's eyes lit up with excitement.

"Gift?!"

"Was that not why you were stealing glances at the chest?" he teased.

"No… um… it's...I," the words stumbled from her mouth.

"Oh, you were looking at my brother's man there. There's no need to worry about him, he won't bite unless ordered to."

When the party arrived at the harbor master's office, the silver-haired Prince of the Baylands had his back to them as he exchanged pleasantries with a man so fat he might have been mistaken for a sea cow were it not for the fact that instead of smelling of the sea he smelled of perfumes so overbearing that his niece wrinkled her nose and cringed at the smell.

"Papa, we found Uncle!" the little girl shouted as she rushed up behind her father and hugged him.

The Prince spun around and looked at Tyrion, his eyes resting not upon Tyrion, but the woman who had brought him and his niece to the Prince.

"I think you should send a letter to you uncle. Have him send a ship from Claw Isle to return you."

"My Prince?"

"If I cannot trust you to keep my daughter near while I engage in important matters of business then I don't see how I can trust you to be one of my wife's ladies."

"Please, My Prince," she tried to plead, but Viserys Targaryen simply raised his hand to silence her.

"Papa, it wasn't her fault, don't send her away," the little Princess chimed in.

"You should have thought about that before you decided to run off. Actions have consequences, Rhealla."

"Oh dear, Prince Viserys, you must not make such a beautiful young maiden sad," the man who might have bathed in a whorehouse's entire supply of scented oils interjected. He smiled a wide and toothy grin, that exposed his crooked yellow teeth as he reached out to pat the princess on her head on for her to recoil and retreat behind her father.

The Prince was curt," The matter does not concern you, Illyrio."

"Ah but perhaps it concerns me, goodbrother? After all it was the young lady and the Princess that led me to you. Perhaps leniency could be extended thanks to the extenuating circumstances."

Viserys' eyes narrowed and he glared at Tyrion.

 _Oh, I've made a friend of him already. How wonderful._

"I…" he breathed deeply, " will consult with my wife on the matter."

"Wonderful!" the fat man shouted, his accent marking him as a Pentoshi. "We must find this hall of yours, Prince Viserys, I have celebratory wine you must taste."

"I will join you, my goodbrother, and the rest of the guests shortly, but for now I must remain here. I wish to greet Lord Monford at the docks. Lady Valaena-"so that is her name- "accompany our guests to Castle Dragonstone, and take my daughter with you. She's sums to do."

"Yes, My Prince."

They did not have to walk all the way to the castle, only to a horse drawn carriage that waited in the wider streets away from the waters of the lagoon. After helping Tyrion get in the carriage, Sandor took one of the spare horses rather than crowd into the carriage with the fat man. Though Tyrion was glad not to be walking up the numerous steps to Dragonstone's gates, he wasn't sure if the convenience of the carriage was a blessing or a curse, considering it put him in such close proximity to the fat Pentoshi and his overbearing smells. In the carriage, Rhealla curled up in between Lady Valaena and Tyrion, trying to keep far away from Illyrio as possible. Tyrion had scarce known the girl for barely even an hour, and yet he found his arm around her shoulder and his hand holding her tightly as she comforted her. Tyrion had played the part of doting uncle to Ellia and Tyland, but he'd yet to adopt the role of protector.

Rubbing his heavily oiled beard, the fat man looked away from Rhealla to speak with Tyrion. "It is so fortuitous that you would come to visit your family when I have come to discuss trade deals with the good Prince."

"And how might that be.. Illyrio, was it?"

"Oh yes, of course. Forgive me for the lack of proper introductions. I am Illyrio Mopatis, magister of the Most Sublime City or Pentos. If you have some time during the next few days, I would love to discuss with you the possibility of priority trading rights in Lannisport."

"I'm sure my brother Jaime will be thrilled when I tell him I gave Pentos tax exemptions without his permission. Especially considering he is Castellan of Casterly Rock not Lannisport."

"You wound me, My Lord. I do not mean to part the Westerlands from any coin, quite the contrary in fact. I seek instead to make Pentos and Lannisport wealthier."

"You'll have to forgive me for not believing that, Magister."

"Please, Illyrio will do just fine. We are friends, there is no need for formalities."

When the carriage had, at last, arrived at the castle, Tyrion did not wait for Sandor or any attendants to help him out of the carriage, instead favoring a daring leap and roll, that left his clothes a bit dirtier, but none the worse for wear. Rhealla would have followed his example were it not for Lady Valaena's tugging hand.

"Please do not encourage such behavior, My Lord. The Princess' mother has no love for Princess Rhealla's fondness for climbing dragons and leaping from gargoyles."

Tyrion marveled at the stonework of the castle. It's great stone dragons looking less like they were carved from stone and more like the stone was molded into shape by spells long since forgotten. He wanted to see Aegon's Garden or the Boiling Ponds or really any of the dozens of queer and unique things that made the castle so different from any other, but first he had to see someone he wished he'd never have to see again. His sister.

Tyrion was led away from the chattering magisters and lords that crowded the main hall, past dragons of stone and silk, to a room far from sounds of a living castle. When the servant, a young maid no older than fourteen, opened the door, he saw his sister for the first time since she had been sent to Dragonstone. She was still beautiful, but it was a haunting beauty. On her lap slept a her boy, Jaehaerys, and near sat a little girl that looked identical to Rhealla, save for her dress of Red and Gold

"You look well, Sister," he tried to sound genuine.

His sister stared at him intently, her emerald eyes measuring the brother she'd always blamed for killing their mother.

"I remember you being shorter,"

 _Was that a joke?_

"Joanna, take a break from studying your scriptures and say hello to your Uncle Tyrion. He's come a very long way."

The little princess in red and gold nodded her head and walked over to Tyrion, where she curtsied.

"Thank you for coming to vithit, Uncle Tyrion. May the Lord fill your heart with fire."

"May what?" a puzzled Tyrion responded.

"She's offering you a greeting she heard at temple."

"It has been some time since I've been to a sept. You'll have to forgive my ignorance."

"We don't attend services at houses that offer prayers to false gods, Joanna, Jaehaerys, and I attend services at the Red Temple."

Of the many things Tyrion had thought that he might be discussing with his sister during their first meeting in years, religion was not one of them.

"Thank you, Joanna. It is wonderful to meet you," he embraced her as he'd hugged Rhealla, but found her stiff.

"Jaime told me to give you his love and best of wishes."

Before the last word had slipped out of Tyrion's mouth, he could already see that this had not elicited the reaction he thought it might.

"Will his wishes bring back my Daemon? Will they give me back what is mine by right? Will them make me well enough to bring another babe into the world? The usurper can keep his well wishes," she spat.

This was more the Cersei that Tyrion remembered, though her wroth being targeted toward Jaime was a change from what he remembered.

"You'll have to forgive me, dear sister-" he started before Cersei cut him off.

"I already have. Not completely, but I was wrong. I thought it was you. It was supposed to be you, but it wasn't. You didn't send me to this rock in the middle of the sea! You didn't steal Casterly Rock from me! You don't plan to steal my Joanna! I have two little brothers and the one who killed my little Daemon wasn't you."

Tyrion shook his head slowly. He didn't understand what was happening in the slightest. He'd spent most of his life since the rebellion living with his brother in Casterly Rock, and Jaime had never done any of the things she accused him of.

"Jaime's done no such thing, Cersei, see sense-"

"Understand this, Tyrion, I'll not hear another word about him!"

With that final outburst, little Jaehaerys began to cry.

"You're upsetting my little prince, please go. We can speak again later."

As Tyrion departed from his sister's room he found himself unsure of what exactly had happened. It felt as if he was listening in upon a conversation, but could only hear half.

The hours between the Tyrion's conversation with Cersei and the feast passed by quickly enough, and soon Tyrion found himself trading goblets of wine with to Lord Monford Velaryon while Lord Guncer Sunglass' niece made bedroom eyes at him. As the night wore on, Tyrion became more and more confident that the Sunglass girl was beckoning him to come to her. As she got up from her table and departed from the hall she stole several glances that told him she was inviting him. _House Sunglass is plenty high enough, maybe I won't have to wait until the tourney to find a wife._

More than a little tipsy, Tyrion tried his best to follow the raven-haired beauty he'd seen smile at him, unfortunately his best led him out of the castle into the warm night air. Dragons and gargoyles cast long shadows on the stone causeway which led through bubbling pools of boiling water. Barriers of black stone kept him from accidentally plunging into the boiling pools. Fumbling in the dark, as he tried to find the girl, he heard the sound of a soft young voice speaking.

"Doeth it hurt.. The thcar, I mean?"

Sandor Clegane's recognizably gruff voice responded, "No."

Hearing that, Tyrion crept forward quietly and under the cover of darkness hoping to hear a few more words from the Hound. He didn't take the man for one to answer the call of a fair lady, but he'd been surprised before and it might prove amusing to use anything the man said to poke fun at him later. Creeping behind a great stone dragon, Tyrion saw the Hound's silhouette towering next to the small form of one of his nieces.

"How did ith happen?" she asked in her soft lispy voice.

Tyrion had seen the Hound break a man's jaw for asking such an impertinent question, but Sandor merely stood there in silence. The pale moonlight lit the young Targaryen princess's face, allowing Tyrion to see her as she silently gazed up at the quiet figure before her. In the silence, Tyrion could hear the mirth of distant revelers, the bubbling of boiling water, and the crashing of waves against the rocky shore, when finally at last his niece spoke again.

"Have you ever killed a man?"

Coldly, the Hound responded, "Aye. I killed my first man when I was but twelve years old."

The small girl looked a bit taken aback by that.

"You're not like other knighthss."

"I'm no knight, but you're wrong all the same, little dragon. I'm exactly like them. I'm a killer and every single one of the knights you've read about were killers as well. The ones in your stories might be handsome and dashing, but behind the pomp and glory are the mountains of corpses they left in their wake."

The Hound's words were harsh, but there was an honesty to them that Tyrion understood. How many man had the Aemon the Dragonknight slaughtered during the year-long conquest of Dorne? Yet, he and so many like him lived forever in the tales of the small folk and in the writings of the Maesters. In a hundred years would the Mountain that Rides be remembered as one of the bravest knights to have ever lived because of his role in the taking of Kingslanding and Pyke during the Greyjoy Rebellion? The thought of his father's most monstrous man being the subject of songs and stories spoken on the lips of old women to young children left Tyrion feeling a bit uneasy.

Sandor continued on, "No, the only true difference is I don't pretend to be anything more than what I am. I cannot pretend. Not with this." He pointed to his face.

"I don't mind it. Your thcar that ith. I'm no thranger to being thpoken of in hushed tonethss like I'm a grotethque."

"When do you hear such things, girl? Your father seems like the kind of man that would burn someone alive for such things."

"Ladieths and therving girlths alike thpeak freely when they don't know that thomeone thmall ith watching from behind old dragonthss and gargoylths."

She paused and appeared to look directly at the shadow covered dragon that concealed Tyrion. Her sad mismatched eyes looking as though they not only saw Tyrion, but saw through him.

"They whithper of the homely dying girlthss with their queer mithmatched eyethss and their teeth falling out of their headths. They're not though. My teeth. Thome of them never came in, but they're not falling out."

She paused and turned away from Tyrion to look out at the steaming pools of water before going on.

"Rhealla wanths to run away and make her own thorieths. She wantths to be an adventurer, becauth she ith thill a child, but I'm too grown up for that."

The Hound shook his head in disagreement.

"Don't play at being an adult, because a few laughing whores made japes at your appearance, little dragon. Be a child, while you can be, and hopefully in a few years you'll be sent off to Casterly Rock to marry your cousin. He's a good little lord and he'll treat you well. And if anyone jokes about your queer eyes or you fucked up teeth, you tell me and I'll break their fucking jaw and pluck out one of their eyes so that you may take you time to laugh at them."

There was something almost sweet in the grimness of what Sandor said to the girl that almost made Tyrion think that the man genuinely cared.


	15. Shall We Dance: Quentyn I

**Quentyn I**

"Will you miss me?"

Quentyn heard the question clearly but found himself struggling to put together an answer. House Yronwood of Yronwood had been a rival to House Martell since before Nymeria's conquest. They had not meekly given up their dominion over Western Dorne when Mors Martell married Nymeria and combined his forces with the Rhoynar to become Prince of Dorne. Instead, they had fought bitterly and in more recent memory they had risen against House Martell and House Targaryen in three of the five Blackfyre rebellions. Yet, none of that history mattered to the young prince.

Over the course of his fostering at Yronwood, he had come to love Cletus as a brother and Lord Anders as a second father, even going so far as to refuse being knighted by his uncle, Prince Oberyn, in favor of receiving the honor for Lord Anders. He had loved Ynys Yronwood from the moment he had first set eye upon her and still harbored some of those feelings even now that she'd birthed two sons of Lord Ryon Allyrion. Little Lady Gwyneth was not like the sister Quentyn had fallen in love with, being a scrawny young thing with dark brown eyes and darker hair like her mother, while Ynys had her father's blond hair and blue eyes. Yet, even still, the girl of just ten years made him uncomfortable with her forwardness.

"I think I may come to miss you, Lady Gwyneth," he mustered up the courage to say.

The younger girl leaned uncomfortably close to Quentyn and gave him a mischievous smile.

"When I'm old enough, I expect you to come back for me, My Prince."

He was six and ten, he was a man fully grown, and yet at that moment, he felt like a boy of not even half his age. His face was warm, and his cheeks and ears felt flush. I am a knight, he thought.

"W-when next we meet I am like to have my wife on my arm," he tried to sound as confident as a knight should. Heroes were always confident in the stories, elsewise they would not have been brave heroes.

"Have my brother and father made you believe yourself to be a Yronwood? Would you turn away a paramour to keep their approval?"

House Yronwood may have had its origins with the First Men, but they had lived as Andals since the invasion, and in the foothills of the Red Mountains they had been reluctant to let go of many of those customs, even so, many years after they had been forced to kneel before Princess Nymeria. Where the Orphans of the Greenblood had refused to give up their language, still secretly speaking Rhoynish to this day, and worshipped Mother Rhoyne instead of praying to the Seven, many of the Stony Dornish families of the Red Mountains held to their old ways. There had been many a Warden of the Stone Way who had passed over their eldest daughters in favor of younger sons. Gwyneth's own sister, Ynys, would never rule over Yronwood, instead, Lord Anders would pass his title on to Cletus.

Andal law was not the only aspect of the old ways that the Yronwoods held on to. Lord Anders did not see the freedom with which Easterners loved and were loved in the same light that Quentyn's Uncle Oberyn did. The breaking of sacred marriage vows was seen as a dishonoring of both oneself and the one you laid with.

Quentyn was his own man and he would not be ruled by others, but he could not do something that would offend Lord Anders and Ser Cletus, they meant too much to him for that.

"I am sure that by the time we next meet, you will have long forgotten me and cling lovingly to your future husband. I would not give him reason to seek death at my hands unless he was a brute who might lay hands upon you, My Lady."

His words felt hollow, but he would try to be a gallant prince and a gallant prince did not toy with a maiden's heart.

Gwyneth did not look hurt by his words, but neither did she look satisfied by them.

"Were I Ynys, would you say the same thing?"

That wasn't fair. No, it wasn't fair at all.

Quentyn had cursed Ser Ryon's name when he'd first heard that Ynys was to be married to the older man, but in time he had come to know and respect him. Ser Ryon had not sired a bastard like his first son, Daemon Sand, since marrying Ynys, and he'd loved her and treated her well. Yet, for all that, Quentyn still wished he could hold Ynys close to him like he had when he was just a small boy. When he'd felt like a stranger in Yronwood and missed the tender hugs and soothing words of his mother and Ynys had comforted him with songs and the stroking of his hair.

If Ynys came to him and said she loved him as a woman loves a man, would Quentyn dishonor his wife? Would he dishonor Ser Ryon? Would he dishonor Lady Ynys? He had to think about that for longer than he would have liked.

"Aye, I'd say the same thing," he, at last, managed to reply.

Gwyneth looked him up and down, as though she might be taking measure of him, before she finally said, "I believe you. Only because you're as thick as my brother. If the weight of that honor you seem so proud of eventually grows too heavy for you, I will be waiting for you, Quentyn."

Then, standing on the tips of her toes, she gave him a kiss. It was a quick thing, and in an instant, she had turned away from him and begun to leave him. Yet, even in the few moments, he has been able to look upon her, he had seen her face had been as red as a beetroot.

Waiting for Quentyn in the Yronwood stables, Cletus Yronwood was trading jokes with Ser Archibald Yronwood, Gerris Drinkwater, and Willam Wells. The four were Quentyn's constant companions. Cletus was a comely lad, even with his one lazy eye. When Quentyn saw him, he wore a wide grin on his face. The future Lord of Yronwood was always the laughing sort and was rarely without a smile on his face, but at that moment Quentyn wished Cletus could look as dour as he felt so that he might not be the only one feeling miserable.

"Try not to look so sad, My Prince. I've heard tell that a man who wears a frown for too long may one day wake to find he can never smile again. What might you Dragon Bride think if we delivered her a man who could never smile?" Ser Archibald asked.

"Don't go teasing him too much, cousin. My dear sister is like to have made leaving difficult enough on him," Cletus said putting a hand on Quentyn's shoulder and giving him a reassuring pat on the back.

In a better world, Quentyn wouldn't be forced to go back to Sunspear to marry some little girl he'd briefly known years ago. Instead, he and Cletus would be brothers through marriage and he would stay at Yronwood, hawking, jousting, and making mirth with his friends and maybe in a few the lot of them would stalk out into the night and assume faux identities so that they might act as hedge knights or mystery knights in Stormlander's tourney. He would have liked that quite a lot, but there would be no such life for him. No, he would return home and be married at the Water Gardens so that the Lords and Ladies of Dorne, as well as the smallfolk, might become acquainted with him. Then he and his bride would begin a tour of Dorne. There were still those, especially in the East, that smarted over Arianne being sent off to Casterly Rock to marry the Kingslayer. His father, Prince Doran, had written to him of the necessity of putting Dorne's spears at ease. They needed to know who Quentyn was and that this was not meant to be the end of Dornish Law and to know Quentyn they would need to dine with him and his Princess of Peace.

The cool evening air felt nice, as Quentyn and his procession followed the Yron River to the small port of Tintown; where the river met the Sea of Dorne. Their ride was brief, which Quentyn was thankful for when they came upon the small town that acted as both mining town and trading port, even if it wasn't particularly impressive by either standard.

"I wish you could come with me, brother," Quentyn said, as he sidled up to Cletus.

Cletus smiled at him. Not the usual grin that stretched from ear to ear and was generally followed by a tremendous laugh, but a subdued thing.

"Do not imagine this to be the last time we meet, my friend. I would not pass up the opportunity to be by your side when you are wed. And I will try to get my father to set aside his feelings towards Prince Oberyn. No matter the enmity he holds for him, my father should attend the wedding of his ward. It's only proper."

At the dock, a rowboat and a contingent of guards waited for the young prince to take him out to a cog to large to dock at the feeble Tintown port. Goodbyes were had by all and promises of a reunion were made between the knights while the guards watched in patient silence. As Quentyn went to turn to the small boat, Cletus took him by the forearm causing one of the olive-skinned guards' eyes to dart towards the prince, while his hands tightened around his spear.

"I am and always will be your spear, brother. Should the day come that you are ever in need, Yronwood will rise for you. Never doubt it," he said.

"Aye!" Ser Archibald cheered in agreement.

The knights Quentyn had called his friends waved him off as his little boat paddled out to the cog waiting for him. In the moonlit night, he could see their faint outline even as he climbed out onto the deck of the ship, so he waved back to them one last time.

"I don't think they can see you," a soft feminine voice remarked from behind him, causing Quentyn to spin around.

Before him stood a slim willowy woman whose skin almost shone in the moonlight. A long dark braid of hair hung down on a dress the glitter with light. She was beautiful, almost unnervingly so.

"I am sorry, My Lady, but who are you?" she was familiar to him, yet a stranger all the same.

"I'm hurt, Quentyn. I had thought you would remember your loving cousin," her tone was almost mocking in its sweetness.

"Nym?" he tried to sound more confident than he really was. He had not seen any of the Sand Snakes in years, but he knew that the woman before him could not be Obara or Sarella from her complexion and that she could not be Tyene from her hair.

"Very good, cousin. I am quite glad that your time with the Yronwoods has not made you completely blind to your family," she turned and headed towards a door that led into the ship, "Come along cousin. Despite your lateness, supper should still be warm," she motioned for him to follow her.

"Father said nothing of you escorting me to Sunspear, cousin Nym," Quentyn said as he followed his older cousin into the ship.

"He summoned me from Skyreach for your wedding. I assume he meant for me to make the journey with House Fowler, but when I'd heard that you were still at Yronwood, I stole down the Yron River and waited at an inn for your ship after sending a Raven to your father." She wore a wolfish grin that made Quentyn nervous as she beckoned him into her room. Sitting on a table not far from Nym's bed was a large fish and an assortment of sliced citrus fruits.

"You might have stayed with me at Yronwood, rather than an inn. I'm sure Lord Anders would give you a room."

"I wouldn't want to have to duel him after being caught bedding his sweet wife," she said as she took her seat.

"Don't say speak of Lady Cynefrid that way, Nym. She was a good woman and always kind to me," Quentyn said before he could stop himself.

Lady Cynefrid had died in his second year at Yronwood when fever had taken her and Lord Anders had not taken a third wife during Quentyn's time at the castle.

"That temper is something your father would advise against," Nym replied.

"I didn't mean to sound wroth. I only meant that it is wrong to speak ill of the dead."

Lady Nym smirked and let out a delicate laugh.

"You are as sweet as an overripe orange, dear cousin."

Before Quentyn could argue with that, Nym had moved on to another subject.

"You know, my father was hurt when you had Lord Anders knight you. He would have loved to have been the one to bestow upon you the honor."

 _Is that was this teasing is about?_

"I meant Uncle no offense. It was Lord Anders that I squired for, so it only seemed fit that Lord Anders should be the one to raise me up to be a knight."

"True enough, but even still, expect my father to demand he be allowed to show you what it means to be a true knight."

There were few hedge knights in Dorne, though Quentyn supposed that it might be a grand adventure to wonder Westeros entering tourneys as mystery knights with the Red Viper.

"I should like that I think, though father will not allow it until after Daenerys and I have toured Dorne."

"Are you not a man grown? Do you not make decisions for yourself? If my father did everything our grandmother asked of him, do you think he would have eight daughters by five women and have journeyed the world over?"

"I am not Prince Oberyn."

"And thank the Gods for that… You haven't touched any of your food, dear cousin," she pointed a fork at his empty serving plate.

Quentyn reached over to Nym's side of the fish and took near where she had taken from it.

"I'm hurt, dear cousin," she feigned, "I am not Tyene. I wouldn't know what poison goes with fish. And if I was Tyene, then it wouldn't matter that you were eating around the areas I did."

With a sigh, Quentyn frowned, "I look forward to this pleasant ship voyage, cousin. I really do."


	16. Shall We Dance: Jorah I

**Jorah I**

A hiss escaped serjeant Jorah Mormont's lips as the barber-surgeon poured boiling wine into his wound. The arrow had found its way between his plate armor and managed to force its way through the mail and gambeson he'd worn underneath it. The layers of protection had done their job well and kept the arrow from doing too much damage, but that didn't make the pain in his shoulder from where the point meant to kill men had buried itself nearly an inch into his flesh.

"It'll hurt, as it always does, My Lord, but better the sting now than the drawn-out death of poisoned blood," the balding, soft-faced old Tyroshi man who cared for him said.

It was rare for men to neglect their wounds in the Company, but it was not unheard of, so Jorah was familiar with the slow death that came from untreated wounds. The sickness that made strong young men into withered and weak things; their veins near black and their skin a pale green that made them look like living corpses. The sickness ate away at them until they begged for the gift of mercy. Sometimes they could be saved by taking the infected limb, but if the rot had spread too far, then mercy was all the physicians for the Company could offer.

"I am well aware, Taenos," the bear grunted out in great discomfort as the old man began to stitch the wound shut.

"Try not to move, serjeant Jorah, if the stitches are too far apart they will not seal the wound properly."

Despite his discomfort, Jorah would see the wound properly looked after. The war in the disputed lands had already been wrapping up when the Myrish forces had tried to land a last-minute victory to put them in a better position at the negotiation table. With their defeat at the hands of the Company, Myr looked all the weaker and with that defeat, peace was on the horizon. Peace could give him time to return to Pentos so that he may spend time with Lynesse. It had been too long since he'd laid eyes upon his love, and the sharp words she'd left him with when they had parted had only made the time since their separation harder. He had bankrupted himself for her, sullied his honor for her, fled from Westeros to join her great uncle and the Golden Company for her, and still, she resented him. Where other members of the Company wore their wealth upon their bodies, the only gold one could find upon Jorah Mormont's person was his rank. He sold everything not needed to maintain his armor, weapons, and horse so that he might support Lynesse, and even that seemed not to be enough. More and more he relied upon the fat Pentoshi cheesemonger to keep his wife in the lap of luxury. He was not a stupid man, he knew that there would come a day when the fat man would make demands of him, knowing full well that he would not be able to pay him back. What exactly he would demand of Jorah instead of money was a mystery to the knight, though that the day would come when he demanded something from him was a certainty in his mind.

A sharp pain spread out from his wound as the old man's tweezers tugged the needle and string through his flesh, pulling his mind away from thoughts of his wife and the cheesemonger back to the tent in the Disputed Lands. As he fought back a howl of anguish he wished he could have taken milk of the poppy rather than the swig of strong wine he'd gone with, but he needed his wits about him. With Two Swords having been too ill to take to the field when the Myrish had caught Ser Tormund Stone and his men unaware and overwhelmed their small fort, it had been the Bear who had led the Company's men during the battle, and it was a certainty that the Bold would wish to speak with him of it.

As if summoned by his thoughts on the matter, a young squire poked his head into Lord Jorah's tent.

"Lord Jorah?"

"Aye, boy," the words sounding half a growl as they emerged from his gritted teeth.

"The Captain-General's arrived to reinforce our position. He's summoned you to the war council."

Before Jorah could respond, the Tyroshi responded for him, "Lord Jorah can go nowhere while I stitch his wounds. I'm liable to stitch my thumb to shoulder if tries to leave."

"Tell Ser Barristan that I will be along shortly. I'm sure that this will not take much more time."

"Aye, My Lord," the youth replied before departing. 

When the wound was stitched and bound, Jorah left his tent, wishing for just a few more hours without having to deal with the old Captain-General. The first person he asked, a squire who Jorah knew to be a third generation member of the company, was quick to point him in the direction of the Captain-General. As it turned out, the Captain-General had not put up his own tent yet, and instead, he resided in Two Swords' which was easy enough for Jorah to find. Two guards waited at the front of the large canvas tent, armed with crossbows in hand and swords at their hip. Jorah pushed aside the flap of the tent and found Ser Barristan Selmy standing above an ailing Two Swords. Homeless Harry Strickland and Lord Laswell Peake were seated on the far side of the tent trading words when they looked over to see Jorah enter.

"Finally decided to grace us with your presence, Lord Bear?" Homeless Harry asked.

Jorah found the company paymaster to be a tedious man, and neither Harry nor Jorah had much love for the other. The paymaster having suspected Jorah of stealing money from the company to support his wife.

"I was fighting a battle, Harry, how long has it been since you rode with your men on the field?" he knew he shouldn't have said that, but Jorah felt indignant on the matter.

"Silence, the both of you," Ser Barristan said with a wave of his hand, still looking down upon a pale looking Two Swords.

When finally he looked up from the man, his one eye locked on to Jorah.

"I've been able to puzzle out a basic understanding of what happened from Two Swords and a few others, but I'll have the story from your lips now."

The old man did not ask Jorah for the information, he commanded it. And so, Jorah told the three men of how Two Swords had spread his men thin, occupying several small forts in the area after the initial defeat of the Myrish forces. He was confident that the war was at its end and that the Myrish would not try and contest the Company's gains when the bog fever the physician had been leeching him for grew worse. The sickness had been taking the man's strength for some time, but it's worsening had taken his ability to command. This turn seemed to come at the worst possible of moments, as not quite a day later the Myrish sellswords pressed the attack and overwhelmed Ser Tormund Stone and taken the fort and nearby village they had held. Being the next highest ranking company man, it had fallen to Jorah to counter the advance.

Instead of waiting for reinforcements, the bear concentrated the men Two Swords had spread thin and pressed the attack. With 200 heavy horse and 500 pikemen, Lord Jorah had gone out to meet the Myrish force. Though it was standard Company practice for the pikeman lines to be eight deep, Jorah had thinned them to three so that they might present a larger face for the Myrish, in hopes of preventing a flanking. A thin stream of water divided the battle lines of the Golden Company and the Myrish men, largely composed of light cavalry and foot that looked so green Jorah thought maybe one in ten had seen battle before. It had been their look that made the lord do something so dangerous and foolish that had he been an outsider he would have called himself a thrice-damned fool. Rather than wait for the Myrish forces to cross the stream, allowing them to test its depths, and perhaps have their formation disrupted by it, Jorah had his squire blow deeply into his trumpet and signal that they would advance. The heavy horse moved forward under his command, with the pikeman on their right flank following suit more slowly. As they made their way into the stream, their great warhorses wading into the water, the light cavalry of the Myrish sellswords advanced to the edge of the stream, but no further. They would not meet the heavy horse of the Company in the water, instead, they harried them with throwing javelins, before breaking off their attack. It was a strategy, Jorah had seen a dozen times before, from a dozen different companies. They meant to make it impossible for the heavy horse to form a proper attack against their foot. Jorah's best bet for victory was for the foot to break before his charging heavy horse met them, but if they were in too much of a state of disarray, the Myrish formation would not crumble.

Jorah's eyes darted around his lines as he saw one of the Company stallions collapse into the steam, a javelin having landed a lucky, or unlucky, hit to its throat. The beast's scream mixed with the splashing of hooves in the water, the rattling of armor, and the screams of men and in that instant Jorah didn't know what to do. He could sound a retreat, he'd thought, cancel the charge and try and reform his lines on the shore and hope for the best, but if the Myrish pressed the attack and took him in the rear, it would mean the Company's defeat. Looking away from his men and back to the Myrish lines, he saw the light horse falling back as they should, but the green boys, the foot under company banners he'd never seen before were breaking formation. They weren't charging forward to meet them at the shore, instead, men were turning tail.

They don't understand, Jorah had thought as he realized what was happening. They thought the cavalry were retreating, breaking formation and fleeing. Some of the men stood firm, and Jorah could see an angry captain screaming, but too many of them had already broken formation.

"Charge!" he had screamed out, followed by the blowing of his squire's trumpet.

The left flank of the Myrish army was broken, before the heavy horse had even made it to them, the sight of the charge scattering the few that had tried to remain in formation. With the Myrish scattered, the battle became a slaughter as the foot was ridden down while the light cavalry fled. The green boys of the unknown company fell in droves as Jorah and his men cut them down. The fear that he had felt in the middle of the stream had vanished and now he felt a bit of pity for the fools. At some point during the slaughter, he had felt the heavy thunk and sharp pain of an arrow striking him in the back of his shoulder. His sword arm remained unimpaired by the arrow in the opposite should, so he'd continued with the slaughter until it had reached its bloody conclusion.

"You're a fool, Mormont, a damned fool," Harry said, when Jorah's story was done.

"I wouldn't say he's a fool, Harry, though you should have waited for reinforcements, Jorah. At full force, we wouldn't have needed to hope that the Myrish men would break their formation. We would have broken it for them," Laswell responded.

"Seven Hells, Laswell! If the Myrish hadn't broken formation we could have lost the most men in one battle since…" his voice sort of trailed off as he tried to finish his thought without bringing up the war that still left some uncomfortable with the Captain-General's leadership of the company- "in years. This war is as good as won. Even after they took Tormund in the arse it was still as good as won. It gave the Myrish something to soothe their pride and didn't cede our position of strength. This battle didn't need to be fought and none of our men and horses need to die fighting it."

While Harry lectured him, Barristan Selmy, quietly eyed him with his one good eye. The old white beard had lost the other eye in the Disputed Lands not long after joining the Company. He, Whent, and Hightower had been relieved of their duties as Kingsguard when they'd spoken out against the Kingslayer being released from his vows and made castellan of Casterly Rock. The three left Kingslanding not long after that and made their way to the Company. Whether their exile from Westeros was self-imposed or silently requested by Lord Tywin was not known, but they left all the same. What exactly had been the circumstances that had led to Hightower and Selmy choosing the Golden Company over any other sellsword bands when they had met them in battle during the War of the Ninepenny Kings remained a mystery to Jorah. But all these years later, the man who had slain Maelys I now led the men that fought under the golden skull of Bittersteel. Hightower had died for the company, Selmy, had bled for it, and Whent… well, Oswell Whent had died a penniless drunk of a man.

"You should have waited for a raven," Barristan finally said, "But you did well with the rallying, and the next time the Lyseni employ us we can use this to pull more coin from them. Still, I am more concerned with what you said about the Myrish pressing the attack the day after Two Swords collapsed. How many people knew of his condition?"

Jorah thought on that. It was not as if Two Swords' worsening condition had been much of a secret. He'd started being leeched for bog fever nearly a week prior to the battle.

"Much of the camp knew he was ill, though I can't say how many knew he'd collapsed," Jorah answered, rubbing the rough stubble on his face as he thought on the question.

"Men are want to talk, but that Myrish ears heard tell of Two Swords' collapse is troubling. Unwanted eyes and ears may have given the information the Myrish that made them bold enough to attack," Barristan said darkly. "Have you seen anything that might raise your suspicion?"

Jorah shook his head, he was not a spymaster.

"Where is Lysono Maar? The Lyseni may smell like a whore, but he has always had an eye for rooting out spies among the camp followers."

Harry and Barristan trade looks before the old man answered with, "He's away looking into another contract after this war is finished."

Thought of the battle and of any sort of investigation vanished from Jorah's mind when he heard that. Another contract would mean more time away from Lynesse.

"Will we have no time to away from battle after this war? I would see my wife."

The three men cared less and little about Jorah's wife, and their almost exasperated expressions said that clearly.

"We are presented with three potential contracts, captain. We will discuss two of them when the rest of the men arrive," Barristan answered.

Jorah wanted to get drunk. He wanted to get piss drunk. No, more than wanting to get piss drunk he wanted to hold Lynesse. To tell her how much he loved her and to show her how much he loved her. He wanted to feel her skin on his and try again to bring a son into the world, as he had tried every time he'd returned to her from war.

Nodding his head, Jorah asked, "Will that be all you are needing of me, Ser?"

 _I'm going to get drunk._

"For now, but you'll be needed in an hour or two for the war council. With Two Swords in the shape he's in, I'm raising you to captain and giving you command of the men you led today. You'll need a new gold band," Barristan pointed towards Jorah's arm.

Harry looked like he might protest that, but he held his tongue while Laswell extended a hand to congratulate him.

"Thank you, Ser," Jorah responded, a mixture of happiness and bitterness filling his belly with a feeling of unease.

The two hours of waiting ended up being three, but Jorah endured them in sobriety while receiving praise from his men. His squire, a young man of seven and ten who claimed to be the bastard of Lord Joffrey Staunton of Rooks Rest, was all smiles when he'd heard the news.

"I expect I will have to knight you soon, Simon," Jorah said to the pimply-faced lad.

"Not too soon, My Lord, I should like to remain your squire a bit longer I think,"

The boy admired a Jorah Mormont that no one else saw, not even Jorah himself. Despite his closeness, he seemed not to see the man as most others saw him. The Lord of Bear Island didn't know whether to that the boy for that or pity him.

When Jorah filed into the great tent that had been erected to house the captains and commanders of the company he was found the tent near full. As he made for an open seat, some men reached out for his hand, congratulating him on the victory and his promotion, but many if not most ignored the debtor bear entirely. After everyone had found a place to sit or stand the Bold spoke.

"This war is done, the peace may not be signed yet, but the Myrish know it, the Tyroshi know it, and the Lyseni know it. In fact, they are already making plans for the next war. Though, for now, this planned war will see them fighting alongside each other, as well as Volantis."

There were murmurs from the men at that. It was a rare thing for the Free Cities to cooperate in such a manner. Rare enough that the words on most of the men's' lips were the same.

"The Corsair King."

The Basilisk Isles were always a haven for pirates and every so often the Free Cities would set aside their differences to scourge the islands of their pirate population and burn them to the ground. Like the Stepstones, each island generally had its own pirate king, lord, prince, magister, or whatever else they decided to style themselves as, but in recent years, the vast majority of the Isles had fallen under the rule of a pirate king who styled himself _The_ Corsair King. As though he were the be all end all of the pirates. He raided as far west as Ebonhead and as far east as the Cinnamon Straits with some even saying he'd sailed up the Zamoyos River and taken the cursed city of Yeen as the capital of his pirate empire. There were a hundred different tales about the man, some saying he had come down from the City of the Winged Men along the banks of the Hidden Sea and that he looked more like a crow than a man. Others told that he was a cyclops, while still others named him to be a merman with a beard of writhing tentacles. Jorah knew enough that well over half of the tales were likely told by the man's subordinates every time they made port so that his legend might grow.

"Gods be good, you sound like a bunch of pecking hens, quiet down everyone," Barristan shook his head.

"Yes, as you've likely already guessed, this Corsair King has made himself a large enough nuisance that the Free Cities are arguing now on how to deal with the matter. There's like to be a coalition within the next six or seven months to root him out of his hole on the Basilisks and put his fleet to the torch. However, this weed is more deeply entrenched than most before him, so word has come to us that besides the combined fleet and the sellsails the cities hire, there will be need of sellswords."

Again murmurs arose from the men as dark looks were exchanged, but it was Jorah who spoke first.

"If we take the contract we are like to lose 1 in 100 men to this pirate king's forces, but we will lose 1 in 10 to disease, if not more."

Though Jorah spoke of sickness, it was Lynesse that pushed him to come out against the contract. A direct ship ride from Lys or even Volantis would be folly for an army of any meaningful size, let alone the ten thousand of the Golden Company. They would need to travel first to the northernmost of the Summer Isles, Walano, and hop from island to island until they were forced to make the larger leap to Naath and then finally the Basilisks and then do the same trip in reverse after they'd pulled the pirate king out of whatever shit heap he hid in. He might not see Lynesse for years.

Yet, his words rang true with many.

"He's right, I'll die on the field with a sword in my gut and an arrow in my eye, but there are sicknesses on those damn isles that make the bloody flux look tame. I'm with Lord Jorah on this. Let the Second Sons or the Three-Eyed Rams or whoever else the Free Cities can rope into this die of something that turns your outsides into your insides," the rough looking Franklyn Flowers said.

More calls of agreement came from the men and again Barristan raised his hand to calm them.

"Alright, I hear you. We'll let others die in Gogossos. If that's been decided, then we can discuss the next contract," he rifled through several loose pieces of parchment until he found the one he was looking for.

"I am sure you've heard as much about Khal Drogo as you have heard of the Corsair King. Probably more. He leads a khalasar of forty thousand and has never cut his braid," he lingered on that for a bit before going on. "His khalasar lingers along the banks of the Selhoru, leaving the Volantenes worrying about the safety of Selhorys. Every day his lingering makes the Old Blood more anxious that he will not be content with tribute and will attempt to break the city's walls. In response, they are seeking sellswords to bolster their own armies against the Khal. They have offered payment that dwarfs what we are currently taking in from Lys."

The money had a certain appeal to Jorah, as did the prospect of not sailing to the Basilisks, but at the same time, he was not so naive as to make light of the prospect of facing down forty thousand Dothraki screamers. Still, if Drogo did as all Khals were want to do and take his tribute and leave, it meant a hefty payout with very little time committed and that sounded quite inviting to Jorah.

Before he could voice his opinion, Lord Laswell spoke, "At ten thousand against forty thousand I cannot say I much like those odds, but if three thousand cockless Unsullied could stand against twenty-five thousand Dothraki, then I'd wager we can do better."

Jorah noticed that Laswell neglected to say that only six hundred Unsullied had survived that battle with Khal Temmo, but he championed his opinion all the same.

It proved to be slower to get the men to rally for accepting the Volantene contract than it had been to get them to rally against the prospect of invading the Basilisks, but in the end, the men came around. As the commanders talked of strategy and Selhorys, Jorah thought back on what Barristan had said about the spymaster in Two Swords' tent and wondered why that contract hadn't been brought up. If it paid less than the Volantene contract he understood why it might have been forgotten. Still, if it took him closer to his Lynesse, to his home, he might have favored it.


	17. Shall We Dance: Rhaegar II

**Rhaegar II**

The cold wet of snow bit at Rhaegar's nose as fresh flakes of summer snow swept onto the young prince's face. He was as cold, tired and frustrated as his guardian and cousin as they rode the rough trail to the Dreadfort. The life of a hedge knight had not been as exciting as Robb had imagined it and even a good tent had not been able to keep the chill of the cold Northern nights from creeping into their furs. To add to that, the three would be reaching the Dreadfort a week and a half later than they had expected, and that was in addition to the extra three days the Umbers had feasted them upon their return from the Wall.

When they'd finally left Last Hearth, the Greatjon had given them yet another round of parting guest gifts in the form of thick bearskin coats, mead, and smoked venison to add to the group's provisions. They'd been thankful for them at the time but hadn't known just how much they'd come to love those skins.

They'd departed from Last Hearth before first light on a riverboat that had made Ser Arthur most uneasy.

"I've taken heavier loads than four horses and their riders," the captain had tried to reassure him, to very little avail.

The fourth man on the ship, a wandering minstrel who had played for them at Last Hearth, had urged Ser Arthur to calm himself and settle in for the journey, but his words fell upon deaf ears. After the attack at Castle Black, the kingsguard had grown weary of what he saw as unnecessary risks. Near on every step of the journey south from the Wall, he had tried to convince Rhaegar and Robb to ride back down the King's Road to Winterfell, urging caution instead of callousness, but Robb would not waver.

"Go then," his cousin had said the day before they were to depart from Last Hearth.

"You may ride back home if you wish, I'll not begrudge you that, but I mean to see the land I am to govern. I will see the timber mills of the Last River, the Red Town outside the Dreadfort, the Grey Cliffs near Karhold, and the city of White Harbor. The lords and smallfolk of the North will know Robb Stark of Winterfell and he will know them."

Robb's passion had brought a smile to Rhaegar's face. In his youth, the Prince had loved the Young Dragon and had held him on high, but, closer to a man as he was, he had come to see that though he may have had the blood of the dragon, his cousin was more Daeron I than he. Robb had been fashioned by the gods to be a leader, a ruler. If the gods were good it would be decades before that would need to be proven true, but that it would be was a certainty in the prince's mind. So he had sided with Robb and forced Ser Arthur to accept their journey, if reluctantly.

The journey down the river had been slow going, but faster than taking the poorly maintained roads that branched off of the King's Road. The singer's journey down Last River was a shorter one than theirs, the man left the ship just a day into their journey.

"If yer meanin fer Karhold, it'd be wiser fer ye ta stay on a few more days," the captain had advised in his thin nasally voice.

The singer had flashed Rhaegar a wry smile as he mounted his horse, "I've been away from home for far too long. I mean to hold my wife and sing to her of a king's ride down the river."

"You didn't ride down the river with a king," Rhaegar had responded.

The singer laughed a little before he said, "Aye, but the best stories aren't always the most truthful."

It had only been a day and a half later when their journey down Last River had been cut short by a log jam. Smallfolk pulled at thick logs with hooks trying to free up the river, but it seemed that as soon as one of the logs was freed and sent drifting down the river, three others slammed into the log jam to replace it.

Where hauling four men and their horses hadn't worried the old captain, the log jam had.

"I can take ye back ta Last Hearth or leave ye here, but I can't stay. If I stay and wait for the river ta be cleared, them logs is like ta smash up me ol'girl," he'd crowed before letting the three off at the river bank, far from anything that resembled an actual road.

With their departure from the river, the party was forced to wander on the goat trails and backroads that connected the various homesteads, keeps, and towns or the western North. It hadn't taken much of that for Rhaegar to wonder if perhaps he'd made a mistake in siding with Robb. The trails had little in common with even the most pox ridden segments of the King's Road. Instead, they looked more like muddy river beds that tried to suck you into the brown muck and mire. The mud that clung to their horses had been an incredible chore to remove and had slowed their riding significantly. Leaving the three to summer under the sky and stars.

In the Lonely Hills, they became Ser Morrigan and his squires Pate and Egg, much to Robb's protests. Away from the river, the trees all but vanished. The hills were instead blanketed by a thin layer of topsoil and an even thinner layer of grass that gave way from time to time for bare earth and stone.

The hillfolk of the Lonely Hills were mostly sheep and goat herders and looked upon the wandering hedge knight and his young squires with suspicion and even a little fear. The hills had been traded between the Boltons and the Umbers a hundred times across the centuries, with the Umbers regaining control of the area after the final Bolton Rebellion centuries prior. Still, the North Remembers, Rhaegar thought as he watched the shepherd drive their sheep a healthy distance away from the three.

When they finally found a shepherd that didn't immediately flee from them, they found that he was less than cordial. He was an older man with a burliness to him that seemed at odds with his age. Atop his head was thin grey hair that showed a naked scalp.

"Whitehall's tu the west, er ifn yer goin' ta White Harbor, you'd best follow the stream ta the White Knife. You'll choose between the two ifn ya know what's best fer ya."

Robb's brow had furrowed at that, which gave him a look of incredulity. Try as Arthur might, there was no way to conceal the fact that his squires were not the sort you'd be inclined to find riding with a hedge knight.

"We mean to go East so that we might find work in Lord Bolton's court."

The old man shook his head, "Bolton"-the name was spat as though it were half a curse-" won't have work for ya. He's his own free riders and landed men. Men of the North. Men of the Dreadfort. If you're lucky he'll send ya on your way. If you're not…" his eyes darted from face to face as he lingered on that last word. "Ya'd be more like ta find work with Lord Moss in Lone Tree than at the Dreadfort and Lord Moss won't have anythin fer ya… er well... he'll sup ya in his holdfast an feast ya on stories of when he marched us south with Lord Stark, but he'll not be able ta give yah much if anythin in the way of work. Still, that's more than a wee bit better than what southern boys like you will be gettin at the Dreadfort."

"We're not Southroners," Robb and Rhaegar had responded almost simultaneously.

"Maybe you pups aren't. You've got a bit of the North ta ya, but him"- he pointed a bony finger at Ser Arthur-"He's no Northerner and Bolton'll know that."

They parted ways with the shepherd not long after that, continuing their push East; stopping for the night at Lone Tree when they came upon it. When they'd arrived at the ancestral seat of House Moss, they found a hill covered turf houses with a slightly larger blackhouse resting atop it. A stone wall no taller than a man surrounded the hill, while several sad and dilapidated looking stone towers that looked as though they might have been dwarfed by any of the mills along Long Lake stood as sentinels. The holdfast was more a hillfort than a castle, though in a land with few trees, building tall walls would be incredibly costly. Not far from the big blackhouse was the lonely Wirewood that had given the settlement its name. Even from beyond the wall, it was easy to make out the distinctive features of the ancient white tree. Its face was carved low to the ground, with its gaping maw dribbling blood-red sap onto the ground as its menacing red eyes glared down the hill at those who entered the village. At the base of the tree trunk had sat the ribcage of some animal, most likely a sheep, that had long since been picked clean of flesh.

The elderly Lord Osric Moss, a withered old man of five and sixty who was garbed in thick wool clothes, was kind enough to provide food and shelter for the evening so long as they let him regal them with stories of his youth. In the South, the old lord might have been no more than a landed knight, but here he was the Lord of Lone Tree, Warden of the Lonely Hills and Shield for the Giants. The old man and his son's bastard, a Brandon Snow that was almost of an age with Robb and Rhaegar, regaled the three with stories of how many of his forebears had lost their lives to the flayer's knife defending the old Umber kings and then the Kings of Winter after them from the Boltons. He seemed most proud of a Theon Moss who, if the old man told true, had almost single-handedly halted a Bolton invasion of the Umber lands by fighting in one of the narrow passes of the hills. When he met the Red King in combat he'd roared so loudly it had brought down a rockslide which had killed the two combatants. With the king dead, his brother marched his men back to the Dreadfort to unseat his infant nephew.

As the night had dragged on the talk became less of ancient glories and more of recent tragedies. When the Mad King had meant to extinguish House Stark, the old man, his six sons, and fourteen grandsons had answered their liege lord's call and gone South. When the war was over, Osric rode back home with some bones and a bastard his son, Rickon, had gotten off a washerwoman.

With Robb Stark, Rhaegar Targaryen, and Ser Arthur Dayne, the old man might have held his tongue, but with Egg, Pate, and Ser Morrigan, some southern adventurers from the Riverlands, he spoke freely of the war.

"No Southroner remember the days my boys died, but they remember the day Lord Robert's warhammer fell. It was King Robert then, but the Great Lords would rather we forget that the King meant to end the Dragons. That we marched for vengeance and not for a seat at some damned table. Had Lord Brandon Stark been alive, he wouldn't have meekly accepted Lord Tywin's peace. He'd have taken him in the rear and sacked Kingslanding. Then he'd have marched east and smashed the Reachmen outside of Storm's End to put Stannis on the Iron Throne as was his by right. He was the Hungry Wolf reborn, that one. He would have given the North proper vengeance, for his father, for the sister Rhaegar raped to death, and for all the boys that bled for House Stark."

The old man's voice had quaked as his passion grew.

"All the heroes died in the war though. Else they were sent into exile. Leaving us with not but kneelers, little boys, old men, and Tywin Lannister to make them all dance as he sees fit."

Robb had seethed in his silence and had tried to speak out in defense of his Lord father, only to find Ser Arthur's hand upon his shoulder. The Arthur Dayne that had nearly come to blows with the Greatjon a decade prior and disputed the claims of rape and cruelty at the hands of Rhaegar the Elder was not sitting with the boys at the table.

They hadn't lingered in Lone Tree, departing from the holdfast in the wee hours of the morning and continuing their journey to the Dreadfort.

 _The Wall seems so far away_ , Rhaegar thought as the three passed a post meant to act as a demarcation between Bolton and Umber lands. Not that the post was needed, considering it coincided with the ending of the thin-soiled Lonely Hills. Though, Rhaegar supposed that this clear delineation may not have always been the case in the past given Lord Osric's stories. The roads took them through the Dreadfort's woods, not cobblestone roads like the King's Road, but roads they were far and away an improvement over the muddy trails that they'd been forced to travel in the Umber lands.

People seemed to be an even scarcer thing in the Bolton lands than Rhaegar had imagined they would be. Maybe there would not be as many smallfolk as in the areas surrounding Winterfell, but he'd supposed that they would still be a more common sight than in the Umber lands. Yet, they seemed scarce and those that they did see tried to vanish before they could approach them.

"They're afraid," Robb murmured after the fourth time they'd seen someone dart away from them.

"We're strangers, for all they know we could be murraders or robber knights," Arthur had answered.

"For them to be so skittish, they must be plagued by such men. How could Lord Bolton allow that?" Robb asked no one in particular.

Rhaegar silently wondered the same. They'd not seen hide nor hair of banditry since passing into the Bolton lands, which while reassuring made the apprehensive smallfolk all the queerer.

 _What has them so frightened?_

They hadn't managed to answer the question when they saw five riders making their way towards them. Arthur's hand went to the hilt of his blade until he recognized that one of the men approaching was Jory Cassel, captain of the Stark's household guard. With him were Alyn and three other men, Rhaegar didn't immediately recognize. Of the three strangers, one stood out amongst the rest thanks to his pale pink cloak and the richly colored flayed man that appeared upon his doublet. He was pale and thin of face, though not quite gaunt, and lacking any stubble or beard, with long dark hair that had danced as his horse galloped towards them. Rhaegar had seen the man once before, at a festival at Winterfell, though they had both been much younger then and the older boy had served as a page to Lady Dustin, a woman the dragon prince wished to avoid at all costs.

When the five men brought their horses to rest in front of the three, it was the young man in the pink cloak that spoke first.

"Prince Rhaegar, Lord Robb, Ser Arthur, it is good to see you at last. You gave Lord Eddard quite the fright with your prolonged absence. I am certain he will be delighted when we arrive back at the castle with you in tow."

"Lord Eddard?" Robb repeated in confusion.

"Yes, the Lord Paramount has been guest in my father's castle for four days waiting for your arrival."

"Aye, Lord Domeric speaks true, My Lord. Alyn and I rode east with your father not long after receiving your letter from Castle Black," Jory Cassel added.

Evidently, Robb had not counted on Lord Eddard riding out to intercept the boys on their travels. Of course, neither had Rhaegar, so he couldn't blame his cousin for not foreseeing this outcome.

Had Arthur known that this was how their journey would end? Had the Greatjon? Was that why he'd feasted them for those three days when they'd returned from the Wall?

But if the river hadn't had a log jam those three extra days would not have mattered as they would have easily made it down the river and had a much shorter journey to the Dreadfort.

"Then let us not keep Lord Eddard waiting any longer," Arthur said, making Rhaegar silently wonder if his kingsguard had known.

The ride to the Dreadfort was a quick thing, made all the quicker by Robb and Domeric's decision to race one another. Rhaegar had been roped into the activity, but Robb had always been the better horseman than he, causing him and Ser Arthur to lag behind while Robb tried desperately to keep up with Domeric. The lordling of the Dreadfort was a more experienced horseman than Robb by years, and his courser a swifter beast than Robb's rouncey. Try as Robb might, the race was won before it had even been started. When Rhaegar finally caught up to the two, Robb was laughing, and Domeric was smiling.

"You did well. You might have even have managed to beat Mychel and Ser Jon,"

"Who?" a still out of breath Robb asked.

"The youngest of the Redfort brothers. I squired for Lord Horton Redfort until recently. It's been quite the change going from Redfort back to the Dreadfort... The last time I was here was when my mother passed," Domeric's smile faded.

"The castle is too quiet a place for me now. I don't know how much longer I intend to linger. I may ride west to Barrowton and offer my services to Lord Dustin until Lady Bethany is of an age where we may marry."

Rhaegar vaguely remembered the eldest of the Dustin girls. She was an outgoing and confident thing with a narrow horsey face, dark brown eyes that matched her long chestnut curls and a small but dark mole near the right side of her upper lip. She'd been just ten years old the last time Rhaegar had seen her, though he supposed that she'd be of an age with his cousin Sansa.

Rhaegar could see that talk of marriage made Robb queerly uncomfortable. He was still a boy in that regard. He fancied the fairer sex but feared the permanence of the commitment, a sentiment that Rhaegar understood. The Prince feared the day that a raven might come from Kingslanding to inform him that his brother had betrothed him to some Southron lady. So long as he remained a forgotten thing, the Prince in Winterfell would be able to stay with his family, and if the gods were good, he'd be granted a keep of his own one day that would allow him to stay north of the Neck for the rest of his days. He could be an obscure footnote in history, remembered only by his descendants and the next maester to write a history of the Targaryen dynasty.

 _That would serve._

"Why not return to the South? You ride well. Surely you could make a name for yourself in the lists," Robb turned the subject away from marriage.

"The life of a tourney knight is not for me. Too much in the way of wandering and wondering for my liking. And while Lord Redfort would gladly have knighted me, as some of the Northmen in White Harbor who still hold to the Old Gods have been knighted by Lord Manderly, I have decided that there will be no Ser Domeric Bolton. My father's lands are of the old ways and I will rule them as our forebears have."

There was something admirable in that, though Rhaegar couldn't help but recall that those old ways had once included the flaying of Starks.

Soon enough, the forest gave way to a great clearing. For nearly a league the wood was cleared with only the occasional fern rising from the snow-dusted earth, and standing sentinel in the middle of that clearing was the ancient fortress known as the Dreadfort. Rectangular merlons capped the great fortresses walls like giant stone thorns ready to make any who reached out to grab the castle bleed. This was the castle that had withstood years of winter sieges in the days before the unification of the North. This was the ancient and mighty seat of one of the oldest dynasties in Westeros.

There was something unnerving about the visage of the ancient seat of the Red Kings, something that made Rhaegar's hair stand on end as they approached the open gates of the castle. The guards at the front gate stood still as statues as the heir to the Dreadfort led Robb and Rhaegar through the entrance. Under the great outer wall, Rhaegar's eyes drifted to the murder-holes that would make any force that managed to breach the gate bleed. After passing through the inner wall into the castle's inner court, Rhaegar spotted his uncle Eddard with the pale stoney figure of Lord Roose Bolton standing at his side.

After dismounting their horses, they approached the two older lords. Lord Eddard's stern gaze and Lord Roose's pale pale eyes made each step feel as though it took as much out of Rhaegar as a hard day of riding and judging by how Robb's proud gait had become more subdued and nervous, his cousin felt it too.

When they stood before the two Lords, it was Domeric who spoke first. His voice was soft but retained its upbeat tone from earlier.

"Lord Stark, you will be happy to find that not even half a day's ride up the road we encountered Prince Rhaegar, his kingsguard, and your son."

Lord Stark stepped forward and embraced the two boys in a tight hug.

"It is good to see you again, boys. Thank you for keeping the safe, Ser Arthur, and thank you for retrieving them with such haste, Domeric."

"There is no thanks necessary, My Lord," Domeric bowed his head.

Turning to Roose Bolton, Lord Stark said, "I wish to speak with the boys. We will join you in the great hall for supper shorty, Lord Bolton."

The Lord of the Dreadfort dipped his pale face in acquiescence and in his soft voice replied, "Of course, Lord Stark."

Away from earshot of the others, Lord Eddard spoke softly but firmly.

"This journey of yours was dangerous and stupid and it ends here. We will remain at the Dreadfort for the night, but we ride for Winterfell come the marrow."

There was no undue harshness in his uncle's words, but that did little to make Rhaegar feel better about the situation.

"Father, we were safe the entire time. Ser Arthur-" Robb started before being cut off.

"Sent me a raven as soon as you'd reached Last Hearth. I'd already left by that point, but your mother sent a rider after me with it. That horse died to keep me apprised of your situation. "

Rhaegar would not remain silent and allow his cousin to stand alone.

"Uncle, we are nearly six and ten, the age of a Lord's Progress. Surely, we are-"

"But you are not six and ten and this was not a Lord's Progress. This was, however, an imposition upon our vassals with little in the way of a warning to them that you meant to take advantage of their hospitality. Additionally, in a Lord's Progress, you would have had a caravan of retainers and guards to ensure your safety. In this adventure of yours, you would have put the life of Ser Arthur in a dire state should you have been set upon by enough men. Do not think that there are not those who would let slip that a Prince of the Blood and the heir to Winterfell were parading across the North to Mance Rayder? The Wall is tall, but it is lightly manned. If the turncloak wanted to send a raiding party after you he could have. Against five men I would favor Ser Arthur, but against twenty, the both of you could have found yourselves on a trip to the Frostfangs as hostages,"

The two took their dressing down in silence after that. Thankful that Lord Eddard was not a particularly harsh man. Afterward, they made their way to the great hall, where they found Roose and Domeric Bolton at the dais. When they settled in to eat, Domeric was quick to strike up a conversation with Robb and Rhaegar about their journey, which prompted Robb to remark on the skittishness of the smallfolk in Bolton land. That seemed to rouse Lord Roose from his silent state of observation.

Lord Bolton's unnervingly pale eyes fixed upon Robb and in his soft and small voice that forced everyone around him to listen more intently, he replied, "That is most distressing. Should there be bandits in my wood I mean to deal with them with haste."

For a moment, Rhaegar felt sorry for those bandits. They might be terrorizing the smallfolk, but he wagered that there was a room in this imposing hulk of a castle where Lord Roose would flay them alive and he wasn't sure anyone deserved that.

From there, the conversation again turned to Domeric's time in the Vale, which invited Lord Eddard to speak more freely. The Lord of Winterfell's fostering in the Vale of Arryn had been instrumental in changing the entire history of the Seven Kingdoms, but Rhaegar had rarely heard him speak of his childhood under the tutelage of the Lord of the Eyrie alongside the man that had killed Rhaegar the Elder, Robert "the Storm's Hammer" Baratheon.

"I have discussed the matter of sending Bran to squire for Ser Robar Royce, with my Lady wife. Bran is young, but the boy has dreams of Southron knights and their tales," Lord Eddard mentioned to Domeric.

Rhaegar had never heard about such discussions. In fact, the revelation caught him off guard, given Lord Eddard's aversion to the South.

"Ser Robar is a strong and able knight, My Lord. Though his brother Andar's shadow looms large over him. I am certain that he would revel in the chance to take on the son of one of the Lords Paramount as a squire," Domeric replied.

It was then that Lord Roose made a surprising interjection.

"Domeric is half a horse himself and a knight in all but name. He might be able to provide excellent instruction for young Brandon."

"Lord Roose speaks true, father. Domeric bested me in our race to the castle. He is an excellent horseman," Robb added.

"You speak too highly of me-" Domeric started, before being cut off by his father's voice.

"Nonsense, you are half Ryswell. You were born for the saddle."

"You are a man grown, Domeric and I will not command your father to send you to Winterfell so that you might allow me to keep my son close, but I would ask that you consider this to be a formal offer?" Lord Eddard spoke.

The pale-eyed lordling nodded slowly before speaking, "Thank you, My Lord. I am most grateful for your offer. You do me a great honor with this, and I promise I shan't let you down."

A smile grew on Robb's face and Rhaegar could feel one spreading across his own. And on the Lord of the Dreadfort's normally steely face, Rhaegar couldn't help but think he saw the vaguest hint of satisfaction.


End file.
